Sample records for pulsed power applications

Recent progress of agricultural and food processing applications of pulsedpower is described in this paper. Repetitively operated compact pulsedpower generators with a moderate peak power have been developed for the agricultural and the food processing applications. These applications are mainly based on biological effects and can be categorized as decontamination of air and liquid, germination promotion, inhabitation of saprophytes growth, extraction of juice from fruits and vegetables, and fertilization of liquid medium, etc. Types of pulsedpower that have biological effects are caused with gas discharges, water discharges, and electromagnetic fields. The discharges yield free radicals, UV radiation, intense electric field, and shock waves. Biologically based applications of pulsedpower are performed by selecting the type that gives the target objects the adequate result from among these agents or byproducts. For instance, intense electric fields form pores on the cell membrane, which is called electroporation, or influence the nuclei.

high energy density energy storage capacitors. High efficency capacitors are available with energy densities as high as 3 J/cc for 1000 shots or...GENERAL ATOMICS ENERGY PRODUCTS Engineering Bulletin HIGH ENERGY DENSITY CAPACITORS FOR PULSEDPOWERAPPLICATIONS Fred MacDougall, Joel...00-2009 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE High Energy Density Capacitors for PulsedPowerApplications 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has many needs for high reliability, high peak current, high di/dt switches. Solid-state switch technology offers the demonstrated advantage of reliability under a variety of conditions. Light-triggered switches operate with a reduced susceptibility to electromagnetic interference commonly found within pulsedpower environments. Despite the advantages, commercially available solid-state switches are not typically designed for the often extreme pulsedpower requirements. Testing was performed to bound the limits of devices for pulsedpowerapplications beyond the manufacturers specified ratings. To test the applicability of recent commercial light-triggered solid-state designs, an adjustable high current switch test stand was assembled. Results from testing and subsequent selected implementations are presented.

The technology base formed by the development of high peak power simulators, laser drivers, free electron lasers (FEL`s), and Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) drivers from the early 60`s through the late 80`s is being extended to high average power short-pulse machines with the capabilities of performing new roles in environmental cleanup applications and in supporting new types of industrial manufacturing processes. Some of these processes will require very high average beam power levels of hundreds of kilowatts to perhaps megawatts. In this paper we briefly discuss new technology capabilities and then concentrate on specific application areas that may benefit from the high specific energies and high average powers attainable with short-pulse machines.

Electrical actuator systems are being pursued as alternatives to hydraulic systems to reduce maintenance time, weight, and costs while increasing reliability. Additionally, safety and environmental hazards associated with the hydraulic fluids can be eliminated. For most actuation systems, the actuation process is typically pulsed with high peak power requirements but with relatively modest average power levels. For example, the peak power requirements for the shuttle solid rocket booster actuators are approximately 40 kW for one or two seconds, but the average power over the 130 second burn time is on the order of 7 kW. The power-time requirements for electrical actuators are characteristic of pulsedpower technologies where the source can be sized for the average power levels while providing the capability to achieve the peak requirements. Among the options for the power source are battery systems, capacitor systems or battery-capacitor hybrid systems. Battery technologies are energy dense but deficient in power density; capacitor technologies are power dense but limited by energy density. The battery-capacitor hybrid system uses the battery to supply the average power and the capacitor to meet the peak demands. In this research effort, Chemical Double Layer (CDL) capacitor technology is being applied in the design and development of power sources for electrical actuators. CDL capacitors have many properties that make them well-suited for actuator applications. They have the highest demonstrated energy density for capacitive storage (about a factor of 5-10 less than NiCd batteries), have power densities 50 times greater than NiCd batteries, are capable of 500,000 charge-discharge cycles, can be charged at extremely high rates, and have non-explosive failure modes. Thus, CDL capacitors exhibit a combination of desirable battery and capacitor characteristics. Specifically, electrode technology patented by Auburn University is being used in the development of CDL

PulsedPower Hydrodynamics (PPH) is an application of low-impedance pulsedpower, and high magnetic field technology to the study of advanced hydrodynamic problems, instabilities, turbulence, and material properties. PPH can potentially be applied to the study of the properties of warm dense matter (WDM) as well. Exploration of the properties of warm dense matter such as equation of state, viscosity, conductivity is an emerging area of study focused on the behavior of matter at density near solid density (from 10% of solid density to slightly above solid density) and modest temperatures ({approx}1-10 eV). Conditions characteristic of WDM are difficult to obtain, and even more difficult to diagnose. One approach to producing WDM uses laser or particle beam heating of very small quantities of matter on timescales short compared to the subsequent hydrodynamic expansion timescales (isochoric heating) and a vigorous community of researchers are applying these techniques. Pulsedpower hydrodynamic techniques, such as large convergence liner compression of a large volume, modest density, low temperature plasma to densities approaching solid density or through multiple shock compression and heating of normal density material between a massive, high density, energetic liner and a high density central 'anvil' are possible ways to reach relevant conditions. Another avenue to WDM conditions is through the explosion and subsequent expansion of a conductor (wire) against a high pressure (density) gas background (isobaric expansion) techniques. However, both techniques demand substantial energy, proper power conditioning and delivery, and an understanding of the hydrodynamic and instability processes that limit each technique. In this paper we will examine the challenges to pulsedpower technology and to pulsedpower systems presented by the opportunity to explore this interesting region of parameter space.

development, such as the electromagnetic (EM) railgun and the high-energy laser, require some form of pulsedpower and/or pulse forming network. The...last few years, the US Navy has taken an interest in the development of large electromagnetic (EM) railguns for long-range (in excess of 200 miles...a very stressing and often overriding requirement in determining the pulsedpower approach. Using the railgun as an example, a capacitor -based

Pulsedpower refers to a technology that is suited to drive applications requiring very large powerpulses in short bursts. Its recent emerging applications in biology demand compact systems with high voltage electric pulses in nanosecond time range. The required performance of a pulsedpower system is enabled by the combined efforts in its design at three levels: efficient and robust devices at the component level, novel circuits and architecture at the system level, and effective interface techniques to deliver fast pulses at the application level. At the component level we are concerned with the power capability of switches and the energy storage density of capacitors. We compare semiconductor materials - Si, GaAs, GaN and SiC - for high voltage, high current, fast FET-type switches, and study the effects of their intrinsic defects on electrical characteristics. We present the fabrication of BST film capacitors on silicon substrates by pulsed laser deposition, and investigate their potential application to high voltage, high energy density capacitors. At the system level, a nanosecond pulse generator is developed for electroperturbation of biological cells. We model and design a Blumlein PFN (Pulse Forming Network) to deliver nanosecond pulses to a cuvette load. The resonant circuit employs four parallel 100 A MOSFET switches and charges the PFN to 8 kV within 350 ns. At the application level, in order to controllably deliver nanosecond electric pulses into tumors, we have designed, fabricated, and tested impulse catheter devices. Frequency responds, breakdown voltages and effective volumes of catheters are evaluated. With comparison of simulation and experimental results, we further develop dielectric dispersion models for RPMI. This thesis presents a set of strongly interdisciplinary studies based on pulsedpower technology and towards biomedical applications. Addressed issues include from fundamental materials studies to application engineering designs that

Agricultural and food processing applications of pulsedpower and plasma technologies are described in this paper. Repetitively operated compact pulsedpower generators with a moderate peak power are developed for the agricultural and the food processing applications. These applications are mainly based on biological effects and can be categorized as germination control of plants such as Basidiomycota and arabidopsis inactivation of bacteria in soil and liquid medium of hydroponics; extraction of juice from fruits and vegetables; decontamination of air and liquid, etc. Types of pulsedpower that have biological effects are caused with gas discharges, water discharges, and electromagnetic fields. The discharges yield free radicals, UV radiation, intense electric field, and shock waves. Biologically based applications of pulsedpower and plasma are performed by selecting the type that gives the target objects the adequate result from among these agents or byproducts. For instance, intense electric fields form pores on the cell membrane, which is called electroporation, or influence the nuclei. This paper mainly describes the application of the pulsedpower for the germination control of Basidiomycota i.e. mushroom, inactivation of fungi in the soil and the liquid medium in hydroponics, and extraction of polyphenol from skins of grape.

Based on long term experience, collected mainly with military applications like Rail Guns and Active Armour, a range of optimized semiconductor devices for pulsedapplications was developed by ABB Switzerland Ltd and described in this presentation. The presented devices are optimized for pulsed discharge and fit very well for switching the short but high electrical power demand used for magnetic forming. Devices are available in different versions with silicon wafer diameters up to 120 mm and...

This paper proposes a novel topological solution for pulsedpower converters based on capacitor-discharge topologies, integrating a Fast Voltage Compensator which allows an operation at constant power consumption from the utility grid. This solution has been retained as a possible candidate for the CLIC project under study at CERN, which requires more than a thousand synchronously-operated klystron modulators producing a total pulsedpower of almost 40 GW. The proposed Fast Voltage Compensator is integrated in the modulator such that it only has to treat the capacitor charger current and a fraction of the charging voltage, meaning that its dimensioning power and cost are minimized. This topology can be used to improve the AC power quality of any pulsed converters based on capacitor-discharge concept. A prototype has been built and exploited to validate the operating principle and demonstrate the benefits of the proposed solution.

The amount of light collected is crucial for low-powerapplications of pulse oximetry. In this work a novel ring-shaped backside photodiode has been developed for a wearable reflectance pulse oximeter. The photodiode is proven to work with a dual LED with wavelengths of 660 nm and 940 nm. For the......The amount of light collected is crucial for low-powerapplications of pulse oximetry. In this work a novel ring-shaped backside photodiode has been developed for a wearable reflectance pulse oximeter. The photodiode is proven to work with a dual LED with wavelengths of 660 nm and 940 nm....... For the purpose of continuously monitoring vital signs of a human, a temperature sensor is integrated onto the chip containing the photodiode. This biomedical multisensor chip is made for integration into "the electronic patch", an autonomous monitoring system for humans....

Solar cells have been used to convert sunlight to electrical energy for many years and also offer great potential for non-solar energy conversion applications. Their greatly improved performance under monochromatic light compared to sunlight, makes them suitable as photovoltaic (PV) receivers in laser power beaming applications. Laser beamed power to a PV array receiver could provide power to satellites, an orbital transfer vehicle, or a lunar base. Gallium arsenide (GaAs) and indium phosphide (InP) solar cells have calculated efficiencies of more than 50 percent under continuous illumination at the optimum wavelength. Currently high power free-electron lasers are being developed which operate in pulsed conditions. Understanding cell behavior under a laser pulse is important in the selection of the solar cell material and the laser. An experiment by NAsA lewis and JPL at the AVLIS laser facility in Livermore, CA presented experimental data on cell performance under pulsed laser illumination. Reference 5 contains an overview of technical issues concerning the use of solar cells for laser power conversion, written before the experiments were performed. As the experimental results showed, the actual effects of pulsed operation are more complicated. Reference 6 discusses simulations of the output of GaAs concentrator solar cells under pulsed laser illumination. The present paper continues this work, and compares the output of Si and GaAs solar cells.

The total efficiency of power plants depends on the energy conversion in a combustor and a turbine. Considerably higher energy transfer rates can be obtained from a pulsed combustion, but unsteady flow of a single jet combustor reduces the turbine efficiency.Therefore, two pulse combustors were set in parallel and connected to a settling chamber that supplies a flow with constant pressure to the turbine.The aim of investigations presented here is a demonstration of technical feasibility for industrial applications and to show the benefits obtained from the pulse combustors.

Applications of powerfulpulsed CO{sub 2}-lasers for injection of fuel tablets or creation of a protective screen from the vapor of light elements to protect against the destruction of plasma-facing components are discussed, and the corresponding laser parameters are determined. The possibility of using CO{sub 2}-lasers in modeling the phenomena of powerful and energetic plasma fluxes interaction with a wall, as in the case of a plasma disruption, is considered.

The Plasma Physics and Plasma Technology Group of the Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission (CCHEN) has, since about ten years ago, used plasma production devices to study dense hot plasmas, particularly Z-pinches and plasma foci (PFs). In the case of Z-pinches, the studies include studies on the dynamics and stability of gas-embedded Z-pinches at currents of thermonuclear interest, and preliminary studies on wire arrays. For PF research, the aim of the work has been to characterize the physics of these plasmas and also to carry out the design and construction of smaller devices-in terms of both input energy and size-capable of providing dense hot plasmas. In addition, taking advantage of the experience in pulsedpower technology obtained from experimental researches in dense transient plasmas, an exploratory line of pulsedpowerapplications is being developed. In this paper, a brief review listing the most important results achieved by the Plasma Physics and Plasma Technology Group of the CCHEN is presented, including the scaling studies, PF miniaturization and diagnostics and research on Z-pinches at currents of thermonuclear interest. Then, exploratory applications of pulsedpower are presented, including nanoflashes of radiation for radiography and substances detection, high pulsed magnetic fields generation and rock fragmentation.

The Ion Beam Surface Treatment (lBESTrM) process utilizes high energy pulsed ion beams to deposit energy onto the surface of a material allowing near instantaneous melting of the surface layer. The melted layer typically re-solidifies at a very rapid rate which forms a homogeneous, fine- grained structure on the surface of the material resulting in significantly improved surface characteristics. In order to commercialize the IBESTTM process, a reliable and easy-to-operate modulator system has been developed. The QM-I modulator is a thyratron-switched five-stage magnetic pulse compression network which drives a two-stage linear induction adder. The adder provides 400 kV, 150 ns FWHM pulses at a maximum repetition rate of 10 pps for the acceleration of the ion beam. Special emphasis has been placed upon developing the modulator system to be consistent with long-life commercial service.

Ignitrons are electrical switching devices that operate at switching times that are on the order of microseconds, can conduct high currents of thousands of amps, and are capable of holding off tens of thousands of volts between pulses. They consist of a liquid metal pool within an evacuated tube that serves both the cathode and the source of atoms and electrons for an arc discharge. Facing the liquid metal pool is an anode suspended above the cathode, with a smaller ignitor electrode tip located just above the surface of the cathode. The ignitron can be charged to significant voltages, with a potential difference of thousands of volts between anode and cathode. When an ignition pulse is delivered from the ignitor electrode to the cathode, a small amount of the liquid metal is vaporized and subsequently ionized, with the high voltage between the anode and cathode causing the gas to bridge the gap between the two electrodes. The electrons and ions move rapidly towards the anode and cathode, respectively, with the ions liberating still more atoms from the liquid metal cathode surface as a high-current plasma arc discharge is rapidly established. This arc continues in a self-sustaining fashion until the potential difference between the anode and cathode drops below some critical value. Ignitrons have been used in a variety of pulsedpowerapplications, including the railroad industry, industrial chemical processing, and high-power arc welding. In addition, they might prove useful in terrestrial power grid applications, serving as high-current fault switches, quickly shunting dangerous high-current or high-voltage spikes safely to ground. The motivation for this work stemmed from the fact that high-power, high-reliability, pulsedpower devices like the ignitron have been used for ground testing in-space pulsed electric thruster technologies, and the continued use of ignitrons could prove advantageous to the future development and testing of such thrusters. Previous

Graded electrical resistance and assured sliding contact are among the desirable characteristics for the solid armatures used in railguns attainable through the use of composite materials. Metal-metal, metal-ceramic, and metal-polymer composites are generic types of potential solid armature materials. The authors describe the production of these composites by a novel experimental approach that uses a homopolar generator in a pulse-powered materials consolidation system. The processing of Copper-tungsten and aluminum-alumina composites is used to demonstrate versatility of the homopolar generator as a materials processing tool. Powder metallurgy and laminate bonding approaches have been utilized. Composite solid armature materials have been consolidated with subsecond high-temperature exposure. Densification in the solid state proceeds by a warm/hot forging mechanism, and fully dense composites are obtained by a combined application of pressure and a controlled energy input.

Switches are at the heart of all pulsedpower and directed energy systems, which find utility in a number of applications. At present, those applications requiring the highest power levels tend to employ spark-gap switches, but these suffer from relatively high delay-times (~10-8 sec), significant jitter (variation in delay time), and large size. That said, optically-triggered GaN-based photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS) offer a suitably small form factor and are a cost-effective, versatile solution in which delay times and jitter can be extremely short. Furthermore, the optical control of the switch means that they are electrically isolated from the environment and from any other system circuitry, making them immune from electrical noise, eliminating the potential for inadvertent switch triggering. Our recent work shows great promise to extend high-voltage GaN-based extrinsic PCSS state-of-the-art performance in terms of subnanosecond response times, low on-resistance, high current carrying capacity and high blocking voltages. We discuss our recent results in this work.

The development of new electronically conductive materials which can withstand the environment of the positive plates has made possible the construction of a high pulsepower sealed bipolar lead-acid battery. The new battery is described and its advantages over other electrochemical systems are outlined. Performance projections show that the peak specific power of the battery can be as high as 90 kW/kg, and that a specific power of 5 kW/kg can be sustained over several thousand pulses.

The present results indicated that: 1. A pulsed magnetic driven fission power concept, PMD-GCR is developed for closed (NER) and semi-open (NTR) operations. 2. In power mode, power is generated at alpha less than 1 for power levels of hundreds of KW or higher 3. IN semi open NTR mode, PMD-GCR generates thrust at I(sub sp) approx. 5,000 s and jet power approx. 5KW/Kg. 4. PMD-GCR is highly subcritical and is actively driven to critically. 5. Parallel path with fusion R&D needs in many areas including magnet and plasma.

High energy density capacitor is a key device to power supply source for electromagnetic gun (EMG) system,and extending its lifetime is important for increasing the reliability of the power source.Working in high electric field could affect the capacitor lifetime,and this effect on metallized polypropylene film capacitors (MPPFCs) in pulsed-powerapplications is studied and presented.Experimental results show that the lifetime of MPPFCs decreases with the increasing peak value of charged electric field,and this decrease could be described by function (L/L0) ∝ (E/E0)-m,where,m=7.32.The lifetime of MPPFCs also decreases with the increase of the reversal coefficients in underdamped circuits,which could be described by (L/L0) ∝ (ln(1/K0)/(ln(1/K))-b,where,b=0.7.These results provide a basis for the lifetime prediction of MPPFCs in pulsed-powerapplications.

In the past decades, there has been increasing interest in pulsed high power RF sources for building high-gradient high-energy particle accelerators. Passive RF pulse compression systems have been used in many applications to match the available RF sources to the loads requiring higher RF power but a shorter pulse. Theoretically, an active RF pulse compression system has the advantage of higher efficiency and compactness over the passive system. However, the key component for such a system an element capable of switching hundreds of megawatts of RF power in a short time compared to the compressed pulse width is still an open problem. In this dissertation, we present a switch module composed of an active window based on the bulk effects in semiconductor, a circular waveguide three-port network and a movable short plane, with the capability to adjust the S-parameters before and after switching. The RF properties of the switch module were analyzed. We give the scaling laws of the multiple-element switch systems, which allow the expansion of the system to a higher power level. We present a novel overmoded design for the circular waveguide three-port network and the associated circular-to-rectangular mode-converter. We also detail the design and synthesis process of this novel mode-converter. We demonstrate an electrically controlled ultra-fast high power X-band RF active window built with PIN diodes on high resistivity silicon. The window is capable of handling multi-megawatt RF power and can switch in 2-300ns with a 1000A current driver. A low power active pulse compression experiment was carried out with the switch module and a 375ns resonant delay line, obtaining 8 times compression gain with a compression ratio of 20.

A pulsed-power generator using inductive adder technology is proposed for the case of a discharge gap. The merit of this generator is to merge the pulsed-voltage and pulsed-current adders via the dual secondary windings with special circuit. For the nonlinear impedance in any discharge gap, the standalone voltage-pulse and current-pulse can be outputted successively by this generator. The proposed generator is especially useful for the common resolution of implementing pulse discharge at less cost. As an application example, a compact trigger prototype was developed to compatibly use in the gas-insulated and vacuum switches. Experiments achieved good results that the triggered switches showed stable performance and long life. If the basic circuit of this proposed generator is regarded as a pulsed-generating unit, a certain number of such units connected in parallel can be expected to form a general device with generating greater breakdown-voltage and sustained-current pulses for discharge gaps.

Various failures and destructions occur in the applications of the power electronic converter. The real practice shows that these failures are connected with the con-centration of the transient powerpulse. In allusion to the physical characteristics of power electronic converters,this paper proposed that the powerpulse and its se-quence are the basis for power electronics in the perspective of electromagnetic energy. The authors analyzed the transient processes in the power semiconductors,electric conduction loops and controller system and illustrated the powerpulse phenomena in high voltage and high power inverters. This investigation on the powerpulse sequence is very meaningful for the failure analysis and device pro-tection and has become an important topic in power electronics.

Various failures and destructions occur in the applications of the power electronic converter, The real practice shows that these failures are connected with the concentration of the transient powerpulse. In allusion to the physical characteristics of power electronic converters, this paper proposed that the powerpulse and its sequence are the basis for power electronics in the perspective of electromagnetic energy. The authors analyzed the transient processes in the power semiconductors,electric conduction loops and controller system and illustrated the powerpulse phenomena in high voltage and high power inverters. This investigation on the powerpulse sequence is very meaningful for the failure analysis and device protection and has become an important topic in power electronics.

Patent An inductive pulse forming network stores electrical energy delivered from an outside prime power supply in the electric field of a low-voltage, high-energy density network capacitor. Through timed actuation of a series of one or more switches, the energy stored in the electric field of the network capacitor is subsequently converted to electrical energy stored in the magnetic field of a network inductor. The energy stored in the network inductor supplies high-c...

The ideas that led to the successful construction and operation of large multibeam fusion lasers at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory are reviewed. These lasers are based on the use of Nd:glass laser materials. However, most of the concepts are applicable to any laser being designed for fusion experimentation. This report is a summary of lectures given by the author at the 20th Scottish University Summer School in Physics, on Laser Plasma Interaction. This report includes basic concepts of the laser plasma system, a discussion of lasers that are useful for short-pulse, high-power operation, laser design constraints, optical diagnostics, and system organization.

A new type of composite substrate is proposed for constructing fast discharge bipolar lead/acid batteries.This newly developed substrate, used for constructing 4 V bipolar lead/acid batteries, displays no corrosion and a very low catalytic effectfor both hydrogen and oxygen evolution. The specific resistance is 1.2 Ω cm while the areal resistance is 0.04 Ω cm 2. The activelayers are formed by the Planté formation method, both in situ and ex situ. For pulsed-powerapplications, where energy is quickly transferredto an inductor, a model calculation is given for deriving the required ratio of the specific power and the specific energy.

A petawatt pulsed-power accelerator can be driven by various types of electrical-pulse generators, including conventional Marx generators and linear-transformer drivers. The pulsed-power accelerator can be configured to drive an electrical load from one- or two-sides. Various types of loads can be driven; for example, the accelerator can be used to drive a high-current z-pinch load. When driven by slow-pulse generators (e.g., conventional Marx generators), the accelerator comprises an oil section comprising at least one pulse-generator level having a plurality of pulse generators; a water section comprising a pulse-forming circuit for each pulse generator and a level of monolithic triplate radial-transmission-line impedance transformers, that have variable impedance profiles, for each pulse-generator level; and a vacuum section comprising triplate magnetically insulated transmission lines that feed an electrical load. When driven by LTD generators or other fast-pulse generators, the need for the pulse-forming circuits in the water section can be eliminated.

To ensure that work in advancing pulsedpower technology is performed with an acceptably low risk, pulsedpower research facilities at Sandia National Laboratories must satisfy general safety guidelines established by the Department of Energy, policies and formats of the Environment, Safety, and Health (ES and H) Department, and detailed procedures formulated by the PulsedPower Sciences Directorate. The approach to safety training and to writing safe operating procedures, and the procedures presented here are specific to the Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator II (PBFA II) Facility but are applicable as guidelines to other research and development facilities which have similar hazards.

Laser-driven acceleration of ions has inspired novel applications, that can benefit from ion bunch properties different from conventionally (non-laser based) accelerated particle beams. Those differences range from extremely short bunch durations, broad energy spectra, large divergence angles and small source sizes to ultra-high ion bunch densities. So far, the main focus of research has been concentrating on the physics of the interaction of intense laser pulses with plasmas and the related mechanisms of ion acceleration. Now, the new Centre for Advanced Laser Applications (CALA) near Munich aims at pushing these ion bunches towards applications, including radiation therapy of tumors and the development of heavy ion bunches with solid-state-like density. These are needed for novel reaction mechanisms ('fission-fusion') to study the origin of heavy elements in the universe and to prepare for related studies at the upcoming EU-funded high-power laser facility ELI - Nuclear Physics in Bucharest.

In 2001, CSR power supply system made a great progress. Three prototypes were designed for CSR quadruple and correct magnet. Three different companies provided the three prototypes, but the same circuit-chopper were employed. The simplified diagram is showed in Fig.1. All pulsed switching power supply prototypes were tested successfully before the end of 2001.

A new type of composite substrate is proposed for constructing fast discharge bipolar lead/acid batteries. This newly developed substrate, used for constructing 4 V bipolar lead/acid batteries, displays no corrosion and a very low catalytic effect for both hydrogen and oxygen evolution. The specific resistance is 1.2 {Omega} cm while the areal resistance is 0.04 {Omega} cm{sup 2}. The active layers are formed by the Plante formation method, both in situ and ex situ. For pulsed-powerapplications, where energy is quickly transferred to an inductor, a model calculation is given for driving the required ratio of the specific power and the specific energy. (orig.)

Pulsedpower is a robust and inexpensive technology for obtaining high powers. Considerable progress has been made on developing light ion beams as a means of transporting this power to inertial fusion capsules. However, further progress is hampered by the lack of an adequate ion source. Alternatively, z-pinches can efficiently convert pulsedpower into thermal radiation, which can be used to drive an inertial fusion capsule. However, a z-pinch driven fusion explosion will destroy a portion of the transmission line that delivers the electrical power to the z-pinch. They investigate several options for providing standoff for z-pinch driven fusion. Recyclable Transmission Lines (RTLs) appear to be the most promising approach.

Conference (19th). Held in San Francisco , CA on 16-21 June 2013., The original document contains color images. 14. ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the...K. Bourkland, C. Jensen, Q. Kerns, P. Prieto , G. Saewert, and D. Wolff, “A Second Long Pulse Modulator For TESLA Using IGBTs,” in 5th European

A high power microwave system based on power combining and pulse compression of conventional klystrons is introduced in this paper. This system mainly consists of pulse modulator, power combiner, driving source of klystrons and pulse compressor. A solid state induction modulator and pulse transformer were used to drive two 50 MW S-band klystrons with pulse widths 4 {\\mu}s in parallel, after power combining and pulse compression, the tested peak power had reached about 210 MW with pulse widths nearly 400 ns at 25 Hz, while the experimental maximum output power was just limited by the power capacity of loads. This type of high power microwave system has widely application prospect in RF system of large scale particle accelerators, high power radar transmitters and high level electromagnetic environment generators.

The power insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is used in many types of applications. Although the use of the power IGBT has been well characterized for many continuous operation power electronics applications, little published information is available regarding the performance of a given IGBT under pulsedpower conditions. Additionally, component libraries in circuit simulation software packages have a finite number of IGBTs. This paper presents a process for characterizing the performance of a given power IGBT under pulsedpower conditions. Specifically, signals up to 3.5 kV and 1 kA with 1-10 {micro}s pulse widths have been applied to a Powerex QIS4506001 IGBT. This process utilizes least squares curve fitting techniques with collected data to determine values for a set of modeling parameters. These parameters were used in the Oziemkiewicz implementation of the Hefner model for the IGBT that is utilized in some circuit simulation software packages. After the nominal parameter values are determined, they can be inserted into the Oziemkiewicz implementation to simulate a given IGBT.

We demonstrate a nonlinear crystal-based short pulse recirculation cavity for trapping the second harmonic of an incident high power laser pulse. This scheme aims to increase the efficiency and flux of Compton-scattering based light sources. We demonstrate up to 36x average power enhancement of frequency doubled sub-millijoule picosecond pulses, and 17x average power enhancement of 177 mJ, 10 ps, 10 Hz pulses.

We demonstrate a nonlinear crystal-based short pulse recirculation cavity for trapping the second harmonic of an incident high-power laser pulse. This scheme aims to increase the efficiency and flux of Compton-scattering-based light sources. We demonstrate up to 40x average power enhancement of frequency-doubled submillijoule picosecond pulses, and 17x average power enhancement of 177 mJ, 10 ps, 10 Hz pulses.

The authors are developing the RANCHERO high explosive pulsedpower (HEPP) system to power cylindrically imploding solid-density liners for hydrodynamics experiments. Their near-term goal is to conduct experiments in the regime pertinent to the Atlas capacitor bank. That is, they will attempt to implode liners of ~50 g mass at velocities approaching 15 km/sec. The basic building block of the HEPP system is a coaxial generator with a 304.8 mm diameter stator, and an initial armature diameter of 152 mm. The armature is expanded by a high explosive (HE) charge detonated simultaneously along its axis. The authors have reported a variety of experiments conducted with generator modules 43 cm long and have presented an initial design for hydrodynamic liner experiments. In this paper, they give a synopsis of their first system test, and a status report on the development of a generator module that is 1.4 m long. (6 refs).

Pulsedpower has been used to produce non-thermal plasmas in gases that generate a high electric field at the tip of streamer discharges, where high energy electrons, free radicals, and ozone are produced. Recently, all solid state pulsedpower generators, which are operated with high repetition rate, long lifetime and high reliability, have been developed for industrial applications, such as high repetition rate pulsed gas lasers, high energy density plasma (EUV sources) and water discharges...

The 13-MJ Beamlet pulsed-power system provides power to the 512 flash lamps in the cavity and booster amplifiers. Since the flash lamps pump all of the apertures in the 2 x 2 amplifier array, the capacitor bank provides roughly four times the energy required to pump the single active beam line. During the 40 s prior to the shot, the capacitors are charged by constant-current power supplies. Ignitron switches transfer the capacitor energy to the flash lamps via coaxial cables. A preionization system triggers the flash lamps and delivers roughly 1 % of the capacitor energy 200 {mu}s prior to the main discharge. This is the first time flash-lamp preionization has been used in a large facility. Preionization improves the amplifier efficiency by roughly 5% and increases the lifetime of the flash lamps. LabVIEW control panels provide an operator interface with the modular controls and diagnostics. To improve the reliability of the system, high-energy-density, self-healing, metallized dielectric capacitors are used. High-frequency, voltage-regulated switching power supplies are integrated into each module on Beamlet, allowing greater independence among the modules and improved charge voltage accuracy, flexibility, and repeatability.

High power and long-pulse negative ion extractor, which is composed of the plasma grid (PG) and the extraction grid (EXG), is newly developed toward the neutral beam injector for heating and current drive of future fusion machines such as ITER, JT-60 Super Advanced and DEMO reactor. The PG is designed to enhance surface production of negative ions efficiently by applying the chamfered aperture. The efficiency of the negative ion production for the discharge power increased by a factor of 1.3 against that of the conventional PG. The EXG is also designed with the thermal analysis to upgrade the cooling capability for the long pulse operation of >1000 s required in ITER. Though the magnetic field for electron suppression is reduced to 0.75 of that in the conventional EXG due to this upgrade, it was experimentally confirmed that the extracted electron current can be suppressed to the allowable level for the long pulse operation. These results show that newly developed extractor has the high potential for the long pulse extraction of the negative ions.

Polymer film of pulse discharge capacitors operated at high repetition rate dissipates substantial power. The thermal conductivity of biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) is measured as a function of metallization resistivity. The thermal conductivity in the plane of the film is about twice that of bulk polypropylene. Thermal design is optimized based on the measurement for large capacitors with multiple windings in a container. High discharge speed results in high current density at the wire arc sprayed end connections which tend to deteriorate gradually, resulting in capacitor failure during operation. To assure the end connection quality before assembly, a test procedure and apparatus for end connection integrity was developed based on monitoring the partial discharge pattern from end connection during discharge. The mechanism of clearing is analyzed which shows arc extinguishes due to the increased arc length and reduced energy so that capacitor can function normally after breakdown. In the case of a clearing discharge, the power dissipation appears to increase with time, although this is not a feature of previous models. Submicrosecond discharge requires minimizing inductance which can be achieved by optimizing the winding structure so that submicrosecond discharge becomes practical. An analysis of the inductance of multisection, very high voltage capacitors is carried out, which identifies low inductance structures for this type of capacitor.

After briefly introducing the ESP technology development based on the new technology for the electrostatic precipitator power-critical characteristics of pulsedpower technology elaborated, and applied to the relevant operational data on 300MW thermal power generating units were analyzed according to the critical pulsepower, thus providing a scientific basis for the critical pulsepowerapplications in the electrostatic precipitator.%简要介绍了电除尘技术发展，并针对静电除尘电源新技术——临界脉冲电源技术特点进行了详细阐述，同时根据临界脉冲电源应用于300MW火力发电机组上的相关运行数据进行了分析，从而为临界脉冲电源在静电除尘器上的应用提供了科学依据。

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a 192-beam laser fusion driver operating at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. NIF relies on three large-scale pulsedpower systems to achieve its goals: the Power Conditioning Unit (PCU), which provides flashlamp excitation for the laser's injection system; the Power Conditioning System (PCS), which provides the multi-megajoule pulsed excitation required to drive flashlamps in the laser's optical amplifiers; and the Plasma Electrode Pockels Cell (PEPC), which enables NIF to take advantage of a fourpass main amplifier. Years of production, installation, and commissioning of the three NIF pulsedpower systems are now complete. Seven-day-per-week operation of the laser has commenced, with the three pulsedpower systems providing routine support of laser operations. We present the details of the status and operational experience associated with the three systems along with a projection of the future for NIF pulsedpower.

This document details Westinghouse's ongoing study of homopolar machines since 1929 with the major effort occurring in the early 1970's to the present. The effort has enabled Westinghouse to develop expertise in the technology required for the design, fabrication and testing of such machines. This includes electrical design, electromagnetic analysis, current collection, mechanical design, advanced cooling, stress analysis, transient rotor performance, bearing analysis and seal technology. Westinghouse is using this capability to explore the use of homopolar machines as pulsedpower supplies for future systems in both military and commercial applications.

The class of ultra-short-pulse (USP) laser sources are used, whenever high precession and high quality material processing is demanded. These laser sources deliver pulse duration in the range of ps to fs and are characterized with high peak intensities leading to a direct vaporization of the material with a minimum thermal damage. With the availability of industrial laser source with an average power of up to 1000W, the main challenge consist of the effective energy distribution and disposition. Using lasers with high repetition rates in the MHz region can cause thermal issues like overheating, melt production and low ablation quality. In this paper, we will discuss different approaches for multibeam processing for utilization of high pulse energies. The combination of diffractive optics and conventional galvometer scanner can be used for high throughput laser ablation, but are limited in the optical qualities. We will show which applications can benefit from this hybrid optic and which improvements in productivity are expected. In addition, the optical limitations of the system will be compiled, in order to evaluate the suitability of this approach for any given application.

Beginning in the early 1970s, a number of research and development efforts were undertaken at U.S. National Laboratories with a goal of developing high power lasers whose characteristics were suitable for investigating the feasibility of laser-driven fusion. A number of different laser systems were developed and tested at ever larger scale in pursuit of the optimum driver for laser fusion experiments. Each of these systems had associated with it a unique pulsedpower option. A considerable amount of original and innovative engineering was carried out in support of these options. Ultimately, the Solid-state Laser approach was selected as the optimum driver for the application. Following this, the Laser Program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the University of Rochester undertook aggressive efforts directed at developing the technology. In particular, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a series of laser systems beginning with the Cyclops laser and culminating in the present with the National Ignition Facility were developed and tested. As a result, a large amount of design information for solid-state laser pulsedpower systems has been documented. Some of it is in the form of published papers, but most of it is buried in internal memoranda, engineering reports and LLNL annual reports. One of the goals of this book is to gather this information into a single useable format, such that it is easily accessed and understood by other engineers and physicists for use with future designs. It can also serve as a primer, which when seriously studied, makes the subsequent reading of original work and follow-up references considerably easier. While this book deals only with the solid-state laser pulsedpower systems, in the bibliography we have included a representative cross section of papers and references from much of the very fine work carried out at other institutions in support of different laser approaches. Finally, in recent years, there has

For the cooling of high temperature superconducting 4 MVA machines (motors or generators), a single-stage Stirling-type pulse-tube cryocooler was built. The cooling power, which the cryocooler was aimed for, is 80 - 100 W at 30 K with an electrical input power of 10 kW (8 kW pV-power). The advantages of this cooler type compared to traditional cooling concepts are an increased reliability and long maintenance intervals. While single-stage Stirling-type pulse-tube cryocoolers for the temperature range of liquid nitrogen (77 K) are already commercially available, there exist currently no commercial systems for the temperature range near 30 K, which is the important range for applications of high-temperature superconductivity. The experimental setup consisted of a 10 kW linear compressor, type 2S297W, from CFIC Inc. which was used as the pressure wave generator. The compressor was operated by a Micromaster 440 frequency inverter from Siemens, which was controlled by a custom-made computer program. The cold head was made in inline configuration, in order to avoid deflection losses. During the first cool-downs tests a temperature inhomogeneity occurred in the regenerator at low temperature and high pV-power, which was attributed to a constant mass flow (circular dc-flow) within the regenerator. This firstly observed dc-flow, generates a net energy flow from the hot end to the cold end of the regenerator, which reduces the cooling capacity considerably and hence the minimum attainable temperature is severely increased. For the design and optimization of the cold-head, a cryocooler model was initially created using the commercial simulation software Sage, which did not include the regenerator inhomogeneity seen in the experiment. For the modeling of the observed streaming inhomogeneity caused by the dc-flow, the regenerator was replaced by two identical parallel regenerators with variable transverse thermal coupling. In the inhomogeneous case (without dc-flow) the

At CERN, fast pulsedpower converters are used to supply trapezoidal current in different magnet loads. These converters perform output current regulation by using a high power IGBT module in its ohmic region. This paper presents a new strategy for pulsed current control applications using a specifically designed IGBT driver.

The Nova laser system is designed to produce critical data in the nation's inertial confinement fusion effort. It is the world's largest peak power laser and presents various unique pulsepower problems. In this paper, pulsepower systems for this laser are described, the evolutionary points from prior systems are pointed out, and the current status of the hardware is given.

The overall objective of the present work was to develop technologies to reduce freshwater consumption in a cooling tower of coal-based power plant so that one could significantly reduce the need of make-up water. The specific goal was to develop a scale prevention technology based an integrated system of physical water treatment (PWT) and a novel filtration method so that one could reduce the need for the water blowdown, which accounts approximately 30% of water loss in a cooling tower. The present study investigated if a pulsed spark discharge in water could be used to remove deposits from the filter membrane. The test setup included a circulating water loop and a pulsedpower system. The present experiments used artificially hardened water with hardness of 1,000 mg/L of CaCO{sub 3} made from a mixture of calcium chloride (CaCl{sub 2}) and sodium carbonate (Na{sub 2}CO{sub 3}) in order to produce calcium carbonate deposits on the filter membrane. Spark discharge in water was found to produce strong shockwaves in water, and the efficiency of the spark discharge in cleaning filter surface was evaluated by measuring the pressure drop across the filter over time. Results showed that the pressure drop could be reduced to the value corresponding to the initial clean state and after that the filter could be maintained at the initial state almost indefinitely, confirming the validity of the present concept of pulsed spark discharge in water to clean dirty filter. The present study also investigated the effect of a plasma-assisted self-cleaning filter on the performance of physical water treatment (PWT) solenoid coil for the mitigation of mineral fouling in a concentric counterflow heat exchanger. The self-cleaning filter utilized shockwaves produced by pulse-spark discharges in water to continuously remove scale deposits from the surface of the filter, thus keeping the pressure drop across the filter at a relatively low value. Artificial hard water was used in the

A 100 kA/60 ns compact pulsedpower accelerator was designed to study the influence to the X-pinch by the load. It is composed of a Marx generator, a combined pulse forming (PFL), a gas-filled V/N field distortion switch, a transfer line,

Although Li/CFx and Li/CFxMnO2 have two of the highest energy densities of all commercial lithium primary batteries known to date, they are typically current-limited and therefore are not used in high-powerapplications. In this work, a Li/CFxMnO2 battery (BA-5790) was hybridized with a 1000 F lithium ion capacitor to allow its use for portable electronic devices requiring 100 W 1-min pulses. An intelligent, power-management board was developed for managing the energy flow between the components. The hybrid architecture was shown to maintain the battery current to a level that minimized energy loss and thermal stress. The performance of the Li/CFxMnO2 hybrid was compared to the standard Li/SO2 battery (BA-5590). The hybrid was shown to deliver the same number of 100 W pulse cycles as two BA-5590 batteries, resulting in a weight savings of 30% and a volumetric reduction of 20%. For devices requiring 8 h of operational time or less, a 5-cell Li/CFxMnO2 hybrid was found to be a lighter (55%) and smaller (45%) power source than the existing two BA-5590 battery option, and a lighter (42%) and smaller (27%) option than 1½ BA-5790 batteries alone. At higher power requirements (>100 W), further weight and size improvements can be expected.

Power supply system is an important subsystem of CSR. To apply for running, the parameters of power supply must be fit the design’s demands. We have tested all prototype of power supply as follows.The DC stability measurement is that the power supply runs in certain current level from the lower value to the normal value. In every current level, we acquire about 550 data by digital meter (model 7081) in 8 h.

of heat transfer fouling tests using a condenser heat exchanger in the laboratory cooling tower, from which we confirmed that the plasma water treatment technology could prevent or significantly mitigate mineral foulings in condenser tubes when compared with the no-treatment case. With the completion of the present work, a cooling water treatment technology using pulse spark discharges is currently ready for field-validation tests. The plasma water treatment technology is a true mechanical water softener with almost no maintenance, which continuously converts hard water to soft water spending a relatively small amount of energy. Such a mechanical water softener could find wide-spread applications to solve hard water problems both in industry and at home.

Future pulsedpower systems may rely on linear transformer driver (LTD) technology. The LTD's will be the building blocks for a driver that can deliver higher current than the Z-Machine. The LTD's would require tens of thousands of low inductance ( %3C 85nH), high voltage (200 kV DC) switches with high reliability and long lifetime ( 10 4 shots). Sandia's Z-Machine employs 36 megavolt class switches that are laser triggered by a single channel discharge. This is feasible for tens of switches but the high inductance and short switch life- time associated with the single channel discharge are undesirable for future machines. Thus the fundamental problem is how to lower inductance and losses while increasing switch life- time and reliability. These goals can be achieved by increasing the number of current-carrying channels. The rail gap switch is ideal for this purpose. Although those switches have been extensively studied during the past decades, each effort has only characterized a particular switch. There is no comprehensive understanding of the underlying physics that would allow predictive capability for arbitrary switch geometry. We have studied rail gap switches via an extensive suite of advanced diagnostics in synergy with theoretical physics and advanced modeling capability. Design and topology of multichannel switches as they relate to discharge dynamics are investigated. This involves electrically and optically triggered rail gaps, as well as discrete multi-site switch concepts.

An inductive energy storage pulsepower system is being developed in BARC, India. Simple, compact, and robust opening switches, capable of generating hundreds of kV, are key elements in the development of inductive energy storage pulsedpower sources. It employs an inductive energy storage and opening switch power conditioning techniques with high energy density capacitors as the primary energy store. The energy stored in the capacitor bank is transferred to an air cored storage inductor in 5.5 μs through wire fuses. By optimizing the exploding wire parameters, a compact, robust, high voltage pulsepower system, capable of generating reproducibly 240 kV, is developed. This paper presents the full details of the system along with the experimental data.

Full Text Available Fine control of microwave power radiation in medical and scientific applications is a challenging task. Since a commercial Continuous Wave (CW magnetron is the most inexpensive microwave device available today on the market, it becomes the best candidate for a microwave power generator used in medical diathermy and hyperthermia treatments or high efficiency chemical reactions using microwave reactors as well. This article presents a new method for driving a CW magnetron with short pulses, using a modified commercial Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS inverter, software driven by a custom embedded system. The microwave power generator designed with this method can be programmed for output microwave pulses down to 1% of the magnetron's power and allows microwave low frequency pulse modulation in the range of human brain electrical activity, intended for medical applications. Microwave output power continuous control is also possible with the magnetron running in the oscillating area, using a dual frequency Pulse Width Modulation (PWM, where the low frequency PWM pulse is modulating a higher resonant frequency required by the ZVS inverter's transformer. The method presented allows a continuous control of both power and energy (duty-cycle at the inverter's output.

A pulsedpower generator by an inductive energy storage system is extremely compact and light in comparison with a conventional pulsedpower generator, which consists of a Marx bank and a water pulse forming line. A compact and light pulsepower generator is applied to the generation of pulsed ion beams. A thin copper fuse is used an an opening switch, which is necessary in the inductive storage pulsedpower generator. A magnetically insulated diode is used for the generation of ion beams. The pulsed ion beams are successfully generated by the inductive storage pulsedpower generator for the first time.

Minimization of energy consumed in plasma generation is critical for applications, in which a large volume of plasmas is needed. We suggest that a high electron density atmospheric pressure plasmas can be generated by pulsed discharges in potassium seeded argon at an elevated temperature with a very small power input. The ionization efficiency and power budget of pulsed discharges in such plasmas are analytically studied. The results show that ionization efficiency of argon, especially at small reduced electric field E/N (the ratio of the electric field to the gas number density), is improved effectively in the presence of small amount of potassium additives. Power input of pulsed discharge to sustain a prescribed average level of ionization in potassium seeded argon is three orders of magnitude lower than that in pure argon. Further, unlike in pure argon, it is found that very short high-voltage pulses with very high repetition rates are unnecessary in potassium seeded argon. A pulse with 100ns of pulse duration, 5kHz of repetition rate, and 2Td (1 Td = 1 ×10-21 Vm2) of E/N is enough to sustain an electron density of 10l9m-3 in 1 atm 1500 K Ar+0.1% K mixture, with a very small power input of about 0.08 × 104 W/m3.

The Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydro Test (DARHT) Facility is being designed to produce high-resolution flash radiographs of hydrodynamics experiments. Two 16- to 20-MeV linear induction accelerators (LIA), with an included angle of 90{degree}, are used to produce intense bremsstrahlung x-ray pulses of short duration (60-ns flat-top). Each accelerator has a 4-MeV electron source that injects an electron beam into a series of 250-kV induction cells. The three major pulsed-power systems are the injectors, the induction-cell pulsed-power (ICPP) units, and the ICPP trigger systems, and are discussed in this paper. 11 refs., 5 figs, 3 tabs.

We address the possibility to control high powerpulses extracted from the maximally compressed pulse in a nonlinear optical fiber by adjusting the initial excitation parameters. The numerical results show that the power, location and splitting order number of the maximally compressed pulse and the transmission features of high powerpulses extracted from the maximally compressed pulse can be manipulated through adjusting the modulation amplitude, width, and phase of the initial Gaussian-type perturbation pulse on a continuous wave background.

A pulse detonation research engine (MSFC (Marshall Space Flight Center) Model PDRE (Pulse Detonation Rocket Engine) G-2) has been developed for the purpose of examining integrated propulsion and magnetohydrodynamic power generation applications. The engine is based on a rectangular cross-section tube coupled to a converging-diverging nozzle, which is in turn attached to a segmented Faraday channel. As part of the shakedown testing activity, the pressure wave was interrogated along the length of the engine while running on hydrogen/oxygen propellants. Rapid transition to detonation wave propagation was insured through the use of a short Schelkin spiral near the head of the engine. The measured detonation wave velocities were in excess of 2500 m/s in agreement with the theoretical C-J velocity. The engine was first tested in a straight tube configuration without a nozzle, and the time resolved thrust was measured simultaneously with the head-end pressure. Similar measurements were made with the converging-diverging nozzle attached. The time correlation of the thrust and head-end pressure data was found to be excellent. The major purpose of the converging-diverging nozzle was to configure the engine for driving an MHD generator for the direct production of electrical power. Additional tests were therefore necessary in which seed (cesium-hydroxide dissolved in methanol) was directly injected into the engine as a spray. The exhaust plume was then interrogated with a microwave interferometer in an attempt to characterize the plasma conditions, and emission spectroscopy measurements were also acquired. Data reduction efforts indicate that the plasma exhaust is very highly ionized, although there is some uncertainty at this time as to the relative abundance of negative OH ions. The emission spectroscopy data provided some indication of the species in the exhaust as well as a measurement of temperature. A 24-electrode-pair segmented Faraday channel and 0.6 Tesla permanent

A pulse detonation research engine (MSFC (Marshall Space Flight Center) Model PDRE (Pulse Detonation Rocket Engine) G-2) has been developed for the purpose of examining integrated propulsion and magnetohydrodynamic power generation applications. The engine is based on a rectangular cross-section tube coupled to a converging-diverging nozzle, which is in turn attached to a segmented Faraday channel. As part of the shakedown testing activity, the pressure wave was interrogated along the length of the engine while running on hydrogen/oxygen propellants. Rapid transition to detonation wave propagation was insured through the use of a short Schelkin spiral near the head of the engine. The measured detonation wave velocities were in excess of 2500 m/s in agreement with the theoretical C-J velocity. The engine was first tested in a straight tube configuration without a nozzle, and the time resolved thrust was measured simultaneously with the head-end pressure. Similar measurements were made with the converging-diverging nozzle attached. The time correlation of the thrust and head-end pressure data was found to be excellent. The major purpose of the converging-diverging nozzle was to configure the engine for driving an MHD generator for the direct production of electrical power. Additional tests were therefore necessary in which seed (cesium-hydroxide dissolved in methanol) was directly injected into the engine as a spray. The exhaust plume was then interrogated with a microwave interferometer in an attempt to characterize the plasma conditions, and emission spectroscopy measurements were also acquired. Data reduction efforts indicate that the plasma exhaust is very highly ionized, although there is some uncertainty at this time as to the relative abundance of negative OH ions. The emission spectroscopy data provided some indication of the species in the exhaust as well as a measurement of temperature. A 24-electrode-pair segmented Faraday channel and 0.6 Tesla permanent

Full Text Available Specific HPLC approaches are essential for carbohydrate characterization in food products. Carbohydrates are weak acids with pKa values in the range 12–14 and, consequently, at high pH can be transformed into oxyanions, and can be readily separated using highly efficient anion-exchange columns. Electrochemical detection in HPLC has been proven to be a powerful analytical technique for the determination of compounds containing electroactive groups; pulsed amperometric detection of carbohydrates is favourably performed by taking advantage of their electrocatalytic oxidation mechanism at a gold working electrode in a basic media. High-performance Anion Exchange Chromatography (HPAEC at high pH coupled with pulsed electrochemical detection (PED is one of the most useful techniques for carbohydrate determination either for routine monitoring or research application. This technique has been of a great impact on the analysis of oligo- and polysaccharides. The compatibility of electrochemical detection with gradient elution, coupled with the high selectivity of the anion-exchange stationary phases, allows mixtures of simple sugars, oligo- and polysaccharides to be separated with high resolution in a single run. A few reviews have been written on HPAEC-PED of carbohydrates of food interest in the last years. In this paper the recent developments in this field are examined.

While the power insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGRT) is used in many applications, it is not well characterized under pulsedpower conditions. This makes the IGBT difficult to model for solid state pulsedpowerapplications. The Oziemkiewicz implementation of the Hefner model is utilized to simulate IGBTs in some circuit simulation software packages. However, the seventeen parameters necessary for the Oziemkiewicz implementation must be known for the conditions under which the device will be operating. Using both experimental and simulated data with a least squares curve fitting technique, the parameters necessary to model a given IGBT can be determined. This paper presents two sets of these seventeen parameters that correspond to two different models of power IGBTs. Specifically, these parameters correspond to voltages up to 3.5 kV, currents up to 750 A, and pulse widths up to 10 {micro}s. Additionally, comparisons of the experimental and simulated data will be presented.

Microwave transmission and reflection characteristics of pulsed radio frequency field generated plasmas are elucidated for air, N{sub 2}, and He environments under pressure conditions ranging from 10 to 600 torr. The pulsed, low temperature plasma is generated along the atmospheric side of the dielectric boundary between the source (under vacuum) and the radiating environment with a thickness on the order of 5 mm and a cross sectional area just smaller than that of the waveguide. Utilizing custom multi-standard waveguide couplers and a continuous low power probing source, the scattering parameters were measured before, during, and after the high power microwave pulse with emphasis on the latter. From these scattering parameters, temporal electron density estimations (specifically the longitudinal integral of the density) were calculated using a 1D plane wave-excited model for analysis of the relaxation processes associated. These relaxation characteristics ultimately determine the maximum repetition rate for many pulsed electric field applications and thus are applicable to a much larger scope in the plasma community than just those related to high power microwaves. This manuscript discusses the diagnostic setup for acquiring the power measurements along with a detailed description of the kinematic and chemical behavior of the plasma as it decays down to its undisturbed state under various gas type and pressure conditions.

Full Text Available We have developed the design of Thor: a pulsedpower accelerator that delivers a precisely shaped current pulse with a peak value as high as 7 MA to a strip-line load. The peak magnetic pressure achieved within a 1-cm-wide load is as high as 100 GPa. Thor is powered by as many as 288 decoupled and transit-time isolated bricks. Each brick consists of a single switch and two capacitors connected electrically in series. The bricks can be individually triggered to achieve a high degree of current pulse tailoring. Because the accelerator is impedance matched throughout, capacitor energy is delivered to the strip-line load with an efficiency as high as 50%. We used an iterative finite element method (FEM, circuit, and magnetohydrodynamic simulations to develop an optimized accelerator design. When powered by 96 bricks, Thor delivers as much as 4.1 MA to a load, and achieves peak magnetic pressures as high as 65 GPa. When powered by 288 bricks, Thor delivers as much as 6.9 MA to a load, and achieves magnetic pressures as high as 170 GPa. We have developed an algebraic calculational procedure that uses the single brick basis function to determine the brick-triggering sequence necessary to generate a highly tailored current pulse time history for shockless loading of samples. Thor will drive a wide variety of magnetically driven shockless ramp compression, shockless flyer plate, shock-ramp, equation of state, material strength, phase transition, and other advanced material physics experiments.

In 1993, the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA, PL 103-62) was enacted. GPRA, which applies to all federal programs, has three components: strategic plans, annual performance plans, and metrics to show how well annual plans are being followed. As part of meeting the GRPA requirement in FY2000, a 14-member external peer review panel (the Garwin Committee) was convened on May 17-19, 2000 to review Sandia National Laboratories' PulsedPower Programs as a component of the Performance Appraisal Process negotiated with the Department of Energy (DOE). The scope of the review included activities in inertial confinement fission (ICF), weapon physics, development of radiation sources for weapons effects simulation, x-ray radiography, basic research in high energy density physics (HEDP), and pulsedpower technology research and development. In his charge to the committee, Jeffrey Quintenz, Director of PulsedPower Sciences (1600) asked that the review be based on four criteria (1) quality of science, technology, and engineering, (2) programmatic performance, management, and planning, (3) relevance to national needs and agency missions, and (4) performance in the operation and construction of major research facilities. In addition, specific programmatic questions were posed by the director and by the DOE-Defense Programs (DP). The accompanying report, produced as a SAND document, is the report of the committee's findings.

Pulsedpower technology enables the generation of large electrical power of micro to nano second duration by compressing and releasing electrical energy. The pulsedpower is utilized in a variety of applications such as large-volume non-thermal plasmas and excimer laser excitation, neither of which could be realized by conventional high-voltage and current technology. Pulsedpower has been generated by capacitive energy storage (CES) systems based on the direct discharge of the capacitor. On ...

Microwave Power Engineering, Volume 2: Applications introduces the electronics technology of microwave power and its applications. This technology emphasizes microwave electronics for direct power utilization and transmission purposes. This volume presents the accomplishments with respect to components, systems, and applications and their prevailing limitations in the light of knowledge of the microwave power technology. The applications discussed include the microwave heating and other processes of materials, which utilize the magnetron predominantly. Other applications include microwave ioni

Papers are presented on high energy lasers which use advanced thyratron switches; pulsedpower for repetitively pulsed high power discharge lasers; Nova pulsepower design and operation; the power oscillator circuit modeling and redesign of the particle beam fusion accelerator II switch trigger laser; and a compact, efficient, solid-state flashlamp modulator. Topics discussed include the effects of laser discharge impedance on circuit designs; pulsedpower for high power electron-beam pumped lasers; a pulse forming network of low inductance and large energy storage density; an integrated high efficiency switched mode laser power supply; and a parallel thyratron pulser with magnetic sharpening for large NgBr lasers. Consideration is given to the gating of thyristors; high repetition rate pseudospark switches for laser applications; the use of the molecular photoelectron-detachment and photodissociation process to switch electron conduction current; electron beam and optical control of bulk semiconductor switches; and scaling pulse generators for lasers.

Control system techniques developed and proven on the Shiva laser have been extended to incorporate new electronic and electo-optic devices as well as conform to unique operational requirements of the 300 terawatt Nova laser system. This paper describes one segment of the control system being designed for the Nova laser currently under design/construction at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The specific segment covered is the control system bus structure responsible for power conditioning and real-time control functions.

CROSSATRONTMmodulator switches are cold-cathode, grid-controlled, plasma-discharge devices that are used for thyratron and hard-tube replacement in high-voltage, pulsed-powerapplications. CROSSATRON modulator switches have been used to produce square pulses of up to 100 kV and 1000 A, and CROSSATRON laser-discharge switches have switched peak discharge currents of up to 10 kA at 40 kV. The major advantage that CROSSATRON switches offer over other plasma switches is a rapid deionization time that permits high pulse-repetition frequencies (103 to 106 pulses per second depending on the application), and a long life associated with the cold-cathode plasma production mechanism. Compared to hard tubes, CROSSATRON switches have a relatively low forward voltage drop (500 V), the ability to close and open up to 1 kA of peak current, and lower grid-drive power requirements. In this article, we describe the physical mechanisms for how the switch works based on simple models and experimental data. The design of CROSSATRON switches is explained, and characteristic performance in closing and opening applications is described and explained.

A new application for high performance pulsedpower program, the production of high energy density environments in materials for the study of material properties and hydrodynamics in complex geometries, has joined family of radiation source applications in the Stockpile Stewardship. The principle tool for producing high energy density environments is the high precision, magnetically imploded, near-solid density liner. The most attractive pulsedpower system for driving such experiments is an ultra-high current, low impedance, microsecond time scale source that is economical both to build and operate. The 25-MJ Atlas capacitor bank system currently under construction at Los Alamos is the first system of its scale specifically designed to drive high precision solid liners. Delivering 30 MA, Atlas will provide liner velocities 12-15 km/sec and kinetic energies of 1-2 MJ /cm with extensive diagnostics and excellent reproducibility. Explosive flux compressor technology provides access to currents exceeding 100 MA ...

Emission characteristics of a nanosecond discharge in inert gases and its halogenides without preionization of the gap from an auxiliary source have been investigated. A volume discharge, initiated by an avalanche electron beam (VDIAEB) was realized at pressures up to 12 atm. In xenon at pressure of 1.2 atm, the energy of spontaneous radiation in the full solid angle was sim 45 mJ/cm^3, and the FWHM of a radiation pulse was sim 110 ns. The spontaneous radiation power rise in xenon was observed at pressures up to 12 atm. Pulsed radiant exitance of inert gases halogenides excited by VDIAEB was sim 4.5 kW/cm^2 at efficiency up to 5.5 %.

This paper presents a pulse doubling technique in a 12-pulse ac-dc converter which supplies direct torque controlled motor drives (DTCIMDs) in order to have better power quality conditions at the point of common coupling. The proposed technique increases the number of rectification pulses without significant changes in the installations and yields in harmonic reduction in both ac and dc sides. The 12-pulse rectified output voltage is accomplished via two paralleled six-pulse acdc converters each of them consisting of three-phase diode bridge rectifiers. An autotransformer is designed to supply the rectifiers. The design procedure of magnetics is in a way such that makes it suitable for retrofit applications where a six-pulse diode bridge rectifier is being utilized. Independent operation of paralleled diode-bridge rectifiers, i.e. dc-ripple re-injection methodology, requires a Zero Sequence Blocking Transformer (ZSBT). Finally, a tapped interphase reactor is connected at the output of ZSBT to double the pulse numbers of output voltage up to 24 pulses. The aforementioned structure improves power quality criteria at ac mains and makes them consistent with the IEEE-519 standard requirements for varying loads. Furthermore, near unity power factor is obtained for a wide range of DTCIMD operation. A comparison is made between 6-pulse, 12-pulse, and proposed converters from view point of power quality indices. Results show that input current total harmonic distortion (THD) is less than 5% for the proposed topology at various loads.

Full Text Available A novel ultra-wideband (UWB monocycle pulse generator with good performance is designed and demonstrated in this paper. It contains a power supply circuit, a pulse drive circuit, a unique pulse forming circuit, and a novel monopolar-to-monocycle pulse transition circuit. The drive circuit employs wideband bipolar junction transistors (BJTs and linear power amplifier transistor to produce a high amplitude drive pulse, and the pulse forming circuit uses the transition characteristics of step recovery diode (SRD effectively to produce a negative narrow pulse. At last, the monocycle pulse forming circuit utilizes a novel inductance L short-circuited stub to generate the monocycle pulse directly. Measurement results show that the waveform of the generated monocycle pulses is over 76 V in peak-to-peak amplitude and 3.2 ns in pulse full-width. These characteristics of the monocycle pulse are advantageous for obtaining long detection range and high resolution, when it is applied to ultra-wideband radar applications.

This letter considers quantitative models of microscopic processes in plasmas formed in gas phase devices for pulsedpower. Although models have been developed for devices such as lasers, there are others, such as switches, where these processes have been treated only phenomenologically. Further, transport data must be adjusted to include the effects of high electron density. It is shown that it is necessary to use a microscopic model to correctly describe the device behavior. Examples presented include the effect of Coulomb collisions on conductivity in various gases, and the ionization processes in a hydrogen thyratron.

In Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE), Target Chamber Dynamics (TCD) is an integral part of the target chamber design and performance. TCD includes target output deposition of target x-rays, ions and neutrons in target chamber gases and structures, vaporization and melting of target chamber materials, radiation-hydrodynamics in target chamber vapors and gases, and chamber conditions at the time of target and beam injections. Pulsedpower provides a unique environment for IFE-TCD validation experiments in two important ways: they do not require the very clean conditions which lasers need and they currently provide large x-ray and ion energies.

Ultrashort terahertz pulses derived from femtosecond table-top sources have become a valuable tool for time-resolved spectroscopy during the last two decades. Until recently, the pulse energies and field strengths of these pulses have been generally too low to allow for the use as pump pulses or the study of nonlinear effects in the terahertz range. In this review article we will describe methods of generation of intense single cycle terahertz pulses with emphasis on optical rectification using the tilted-pulse-front pumping technique. We will also discuss some applications of these intense pulses in the emerging field of nonlinear terahertz spectroscopy. (topical review)

The enhancement of peak power by means of RF pulse compression has found important application for driving high energy electron linacs, the SLAC linac in particular. The SLAC Energy Doubler (SLED), however, yields a pulse shape in the form of a decaying exponential which limits the applicability of the method. Two methods of improving this situation have been suggested: binary pulse compression (BPC), in which the pulse is compressed by successive factors of two, and SLED II in which the pair of resonant cavities of SLED are replaced by long resonant delay lines (typically waveguides). Intermediate schemes in which the cavity pair is replaced by sequences of coupled cavities have also been considered. In this paper we describe our efforts towards the design and construction of high-power SLED II systems, which are intended to provide drivers for various advanced accelerator test facilities and potentially for the Next Linear Collider itself. The design path we have chosen requires the development of a number of microwave components in overmoded waveguide, and the bulk of this paper will be devoted to reporting our progress.

A new amplification method, weaving the three basic compression techniques, Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA), Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification (OPCPA) and Plasma Compression by Backward Raman Amplification (BRA) in plasma, is proposed. It is called C3 for Cascaded Conversion Compression. It has the capability to compress with good efficiency kilojoule to megajoule, nanosecond laser pulses into femtosecond pulses, to produce exawatt and beyond peak power. In the future, C3 could...

Progress in the worldwide development of high-power gyrotrons for magnetic confinement fusion plasma applications is described. After technology breakthroughs in research on gyrotron components in the 1990s, significant progress has been achieved in the last decade, in particular, in the field of long-pulse and continuous wave (CW) gyrotrons for a wide range of frequencies. At present, the development of 1 MW-class CW gyrotrons has been very successful; these are applicable for self-ignition experiments on fusion plasmas and their confinement in the tokamak ITER, for long-pulse confinement experiments in the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) and for EC H&CD in the future tokamak JT-60SA. For this progress in the field of high-power long-pulse gyrotrons, innovations such as the realization of high-efficiency stable oscillation in very high order cavity modes, the use of single-stage depressed collectors for energy recovery, highly efficient internal quasi-optical mode converters and synthetic diamond windows have essentially contributed. The total tube efficiencies are around 50% and the purity of the fundamental Gaussian output mode is 97% and higher. In addition, activities for advanced gyrotrons, e.g. a 2 MW gyrotron using a coaxial cavity, multi-frequency 1 MW gyrotrons and power modulation technology, have made progress.

Ultrashort laser pulses with durations in the femtosecond range up to a few picoseconds provide a unique method for precise materials processing or medical applications. Paired with the recent developments in ultrashort pulse lasers, this technology is finding its way into various application fields. The book gives a comprehensive overview of the principles and applications of ultrashort pulse lasers, especially applied to medicine and production technology. Recent advances in laser technology are discussed in detail. This covers the development of reliable and cheap low power laser sources as well as high average power ultrashort pulse lasers for large scale manufacturing. The fundamentals of laser-matter-interaction as well as processing strategies and the required system technology are discussed for these laser sources with respect to precise materials processing. Finally, different applications within medicine, measurement technology or materials processing are highlighted.

Lasers for use in deep-space applications such as interplanetary optical communications employ multiwatt resonantly pumped dual-clad erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and the pulse-position modulation scheme. Nonlinear optical effects and dynamic gain effects often impair their performance and limit their operational range. These effects are analyzed theoretically and numerically with a time-dependent two-level propagation model, respectively. Self-phase modulation and stimulated Raman scattering are found to limit the usable data format space. In operational regimes free from nonlinear effects, dynamic gain effects such as the variation in the output pulse energy and square-pulse distortion are quantified. Both are found to primarily depend on the symbol duration and can be as large as 28% and 21%, respectively.

The use of a thermal equilibrium plasma for combustion control dates back more than a hundred years to the advent of internal combustion (IC) engines and spark ignition systems. The same principles are still applied today to achieve high efficiency in various applications. Recently, the potential use of nonequilibrium plasma for ignition and combustion control has garnered increasing interest due to the possibility of plasma-assisted approaches for ignition and flame stabilization. During the past decade, significant progress has been made toward understanding the mechanisms of plasma chemistry interactions, energy redistribution and the nonequilibrium initiation of combustion. In addition, a wide variety of fuels have been examined using various types of discharge plasmas. Plasma application has been shown to provide additional combustion control, which is necessary for ultra-lean flames, high-speed flows, cold low-pressure conditions of high-altitude gas turbine engine (GTE) relight, detonation initiation in pulsed detonation engines (PDE) and distributed ignition control in homogeneous charge-compression ignition (HCCI) engines, among others. The present paper describes the current understanding of the nonequilibrium excitation of combustible mixtures by electrical discharges and plasma-assisted ignition and combustion. Nonequilibrium plasma demonstrates an ability to control ultra-lean, ultra-fast, low-temperature flames and appears to be an extremely promising technology for a wide range of applications, including aviation GTEs, piston engines, ramjets, scramjets and detonation initiation for pulsed detonation engines. To use nonequilibrium plasma for ignition and combustion in real energetic systems, one must understand the mechanisms of plasma-assisted ignition and combustion and be able to numerically simulate the discharge and combustion processes under various conditions.

The author describes a bipolar battery having a Li alloy anode, CoS2 cathode material, and electrolyte of mixed Li halides. The system is semi-dry because the amount of electrolyte is limited. Fundamental investigations to determine operating voltage limits, active material utilizations, capacity ratios, states of charge, and capacity reserves need to be determined in semi-dry conditions to be unequivocal. This requirement precludes a reference electrode and, instead, the function of a counter-electrode and reference electrodes were combined. The author describes methods and shows comparisons with literature voltammetry data and use of galvanostatic procedures. The results obtained with several Li alloys and with CoS2 electrodes are discussed along with application of these electrochemical design of pulse batteries.

This paper investigates the potential of pulsedpower to sterilize hard and soft tissues and its impact on their physico-mechanical properties. It hypothesizes that pulsed plasma can sterilize both vascular and avascular tissues and the transitive layers in between without deleterious effects on their functional characteristics. Cartilage/bone laminate was chosen as a model to demonstrate the concept, treated at low temperature, at atmospheric pressure, in short durations and in buffered environment using a purposed-built pulsedpower unit. Input voltage and time of exposure were assigned as controlling parameters in a full factorial design of experiment to determine physical and mechanical alteration pre- and post-treatment. The results demonstrated that, discharges of 11 kV sterilized samples in 45 s, reducing intrinsic elastic modules from 1.4 ± 0.9 to 0.9 ± 0.6 MPa. There was a decrease of 14.1 % in stiffness and 27.8 % in elastic-strain energy for the top quartile. Mechanical impairment was directly proportional to input voltage (P value connective tissues with varying level of loss in mechanical robustness which we argue to be acceptable in certain medical and tissue engineering application.

The authors are currently developing a high explosive pulsedpower system concept that they call Ranchero. Ranchero systems consist of series-parallel combinations of simultaneously initiated coaxial magnetic flux compression generators, and are intended to operate in the range from 50 MA to a few hundred MA currents. One example of a Ranchero system is shown here. The coaxial modules lend themselves to extracting the current output either from one end or along the generator midplane. They have previously published design considerations related to the different module configurations, and in this paper they concentrate on the system that they will use for their first imploding liner tests. A single module with end output. The module is 1.4-m long and expands the armature by a factor of two to reach the 30-cm OD stator. The first heavy liner implosion experiments will be conducted in the range of 40--50 MA currents. Electrical tests, to date, have employed high explosive (HE) charges 43-cm long. They have performed tests and related 1D MHD calculations at the 45-MA current level with small loads. From these results, they determine that they can deliver currents of approximately 50 MA to loads of 8 nH.

Laser-material interaction of powerful (up to a terawatt) ultrashort (several picoseconds or shorter) laser pulses and laser-induced effects were investigated theoretically in this dissertation. Since the ultrashort laser pulse (USLP) duration time is much smaller than the characteristic time of the hydrodynamic expansion and thermal diffusion, the interaction occurs at a solid-like material density with most of the light energy absorbed in a thin surface layer. Powerful USLP creates hot, high-pressure plasma, which is quickly ejected without significant energy diffusion into the bulk of the material, Thus collateral damage is reduced. These and other features make USLPs attractive for a variety of applications. The purpose of this dissertation was development of the physical models and numerical tools for improvement of our understanding of the process and as an aid in optimization of the USLP applications. The study is concentrated on two types of materials - simple metals (materials like aluminum or copper) and wide-bandgap dielectrics (fused silica, water). First, key physical phenomena of the ultrashort light interaction with metals and the models needed to describe it are presented. Then, employing one-dimensional plasma hydrodynamics code enhanced with models for laser energy deposition and material properties at low and moderate temperatures, light absorption was self-consistently simulated as a function of laser wavelength, pulse energy and length, angle of incidence and polarization. Next, material response on time scales much longer than the pulse duration was studied using the hydrocode and analytical models. These studies include examination of evolution of the pressure pulses, effects of the shock waves, material ablation and removal and three-dimensional dynamics of the ablation plume. Investigation of the interaction with wide-bandgap dielectrics was stimulated by the experimental studies of the USLP surface ablation of water (water is a model of

The Advanced Test Accelerator (ATA) is a pulsed linear induction accelerator with the following design parameters: 50 MeV, 10 kA, 70 ns, and 1 kHz in a ten-pulse burst. Acceleration is accomplished by means of 190 ferrite-loaded cells, each capable of maintaining a 250 kV voltage pulse for 70 ns across a 1-inch gap. The unique characteristic of this machine is its 1 kHz burst mode capability at very high currents. This paper dscribes the pulsepower development program which used the Experimental Test Accelerator (ETA) technology as a starting base. Considerable changes have been made both electrically and mechanically in the pulsepower components with special consideration being given to the design to achieve higher reliability. A prototype module which incorporates all the pulsepower components has been built and tested for millions of shots. Prototype components and test results are described.

Smart electric power for process intensification is a challenging research field that integrates power engineering, chemistry and green technology. Pulsedpower technology is offering elegant solutions. This work focuses on backgrounds of matching the power source to the process. Important items are

Rapid developments in the area of micro-sensors for various applications such as structural health monitoring, bio-chemical sensors and pressure sensors have increased the demand for portable, low cost, high efficiency energy harvesting devices. In this paper, we describe the scheme for powering a pulse rate sensor with a vibration energy harvester integrated inside a pen commonly carried by humans in the pocket close to the heart. Electromagnetic energy harvesting was selected in order to achieve high power at lower frequencies. The prototype pen harvester was found to generate 3 mW at 5 Hz and 1 mW at 3.5 Hz operating under displacement amplitude of 16 mm (corresponding to an acceleration of approximately 1.14 g{sub rms} at 5 Hz and 0.56 g{sub rms} at 3.5 Hz, respectively). A comprehensive mathematical modelling and simulations were performed in order to optimize the performance of the vibration energy harvester. The integrated pen harvester prototype was found to generate continuous power of 0.46-0.66 mW under normal human actions such as jogging and jumping which is enough for a small scale pulse rate sensor.

As their switching and power handling characteristics improve, solid-state devices are finding new applications in pulsedpower. This is particularly true of applications that require fast trains of short duration pulses. High voltage (600-1200V) MOSFETs are especially well suited for use in these systems, as they can switch at significant peak power levels and are easily gated on and off very quickly. MOSFET operation at the shortest pulse durations is not constrained by the intrinsic capabilities of the MOSFET, but rather by the capabilities of the gate drive circuit and the system physical layout. This project sought to improve MOSFET operation in a pulsedpower context by addressing these issues. The primary goal of this project is to improve the switching performance of power MOSFETs for use in high rep-rate, short pulse, high-powerapplications by improving the design of the gate drive circuits and the circuit layouts used in these systems. This requires evaluation of new commercial gate drive circuits and upgrading the designs of LLNL-developed circuits. In addition, these circuits must be tested with the fastest available high-voltage power MOSFETs.

Full Text Available A novel family of Nyquist-I pulses called iPOWER is proposed with a new design parameter that provides an extra degree of freedom for a certain roll-off factor. The proposed pulse is examined and compared with other existing pulses in terms of out-of-band (OOB power, intercarrier interference (ICI power, signal-to-interference ratio (SIR power, and bit-error-rate (BER in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM systems. The BER was analyzed in the presence of carrier frequency offset (CFO, which introduces ICI in OFDM-based systems. Eye diagram tool is also used to visually analyze the performance of the proposed pulse. Simulation results show that the iPOWERpulse performs better in terms of OOB power, ICI power, SIR power, and improving BER in comparison to other existing pulses in OFDM-based systems.

The application of thin borosilicate glass as interposer material requires methods for separation and drilling of this material. Laser processing with short and ultra-short laser pulses have proven to enable high quality cuts by either direct ablation or internal glass modification and cleavage. A recently developed high power UV nanosecond laser source allows for pulse shaping of individual laser pulses. Thus, the pulse duration, pulse bursts and the repetition rate can be set individually at a maximum output power of up to 60 W. This opens a completely new process window, which could not be entered with conventional Q-switched pulsed laser sources. In this study, the novel pulsed UV laser system was used to study the laser ablation process on 400 μm thin borosilicate glass at different pulse durations ranging from 2 - 10 ns and a pulse burst with two 10 ns laser pulses with a separation of 10 ns. Single line scan experiments were performed to correlate the process parameters and the laser pulse shape with the ablation depth and cutting edge chipping. Increasing the pulse duration within the single pulse experiments from 2 ns to longer pulse durations led to a moderate increase in ablation depth and a significant increase in chipping. The highest material removal was achieved with the 2x10 ns pulse burst. Experimental data also suggest that chipping could be reduced, while maintaining a high ablation depth by selecting an adequate pulse overlap. We also demonstrate that real-time combination of different pulse patterns during drilling a thin borosilicate glass produced holes with low overall chipping at a high throughput rate.

The Atlas PulsePower, Marx Bank will produce significant electromagnetic interference potential (EMI) via its 192 spark-gaps and trigger systems (36 more spark gaps). The authors have a need to measure DC charge components to a fair degree of accuracy during charge to ensure a safe and balanced system. Isolation from elevated- deck and/or high EMI environments during DC voltage or current measurement has classically been approached using frequency modulation (FM) of an imposed carrier on an optical fiber coupled system. There are shortcomings in most systems that can generally be compensated for by various means. In their application of remote sensing, the power to run this remote probe was a central issue. As such the authors took another approach to monitor the DC charge record for the Atlas' Marx banks. (0 refs).

A new amplification method, weaving the three basic compression techniques, Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA), Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification (OPCPA) and Plasma Compression by Backward Raman Amplification (BRA) in plasma, is proposed. It is called C3 for Cascaded Conversion Compression. It has the capability to compress with good efficiency kilojoule to megajoule, nanosecond laser pulses into femtosecond pulses, to produce exawatt and beyond peak power. In the future, C3 could be used at large-scale facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) or the Laser Megajoule (LMJ) and open the way to zettawatt level pulses. The beam will be focused to a wavelength spot size with a f#1. The very small beam size, i.e. few centimeters, along with the low laser repetition rate laser system will make possible the use of inexpensive, precision, disposable optics. The resulting intensity will approach the Schwinger value, thus opening up new possibilities in fundamental physics.

We address the various initial excitations of the Peregrine rogue wave and establish a robust transmission scheme of high powerpulses extracted from the Peregrine rogue wave in a standard telecommunications fiber. The results show that the Peregrine rogue wave can be excited by using a weak pulse atop a continuous wave background and that the high powerpulses extracted from the Peregrine rogue wave exhibit the typical characteristics of breathing solitons. The influence of higher-order effects, such as the third-order dispersion, the self-steepening and the Raman effect, on the propagation of the pulse extracted from the peak position and the interaction between neighboring high powerpulses induced by initial perturbations are also investigated.

Although the Master Oscillator Power-Amplifier (MOPA) based fiber laser has received much attention for laser marking process due to its large tunabilty of pulse duration (from 10ns to 1ms), repetition rate (100Hz to 500kHz), high peak power and extraordinary heat dissipating capability, the output pulse deformation due to the saturation effect of fiber amplifier is detrimental for many applications. We proposed and demonstrated that, by utilizing Genetic algorithm (GA) based optimization technique, the input pulse profile from the master oscillator (current-driven laser diode) could be conveniently optimized to achieve targeted output pulse shape according to real parameters' constraints. In this work, an Yb-doped high power fiber amplifier is considered and a 200ns square shaped pulse profile is the optimization target. Since the input pulse with longer leading edge and shorter trailing edge can compensate the saturation effect, linear, quadratic and cubic polynomial functions are used to describe the input pulse with limited number of unknowns(<5). Coefficients of the polynomial functions are the optimization objects. With reasonable cost and hardware limitations, the cubic input pulse with 4 coefficients is found to be the best as the output amplified pulse can achieve excellent flatness within the square shape. Considering the bandwidth constraint of practical electronics, we examined high-frequency component cut-off effect of input pulses and found that the optimized cubic input pulses with 300MHz bandwidth is still quite acceptable to satisfy the requirement for the amplified output pulse and it is feasible to establish such a pulse generator in real applications.

We demonstrate a novel optical cavity scheme and locking method that can realize the power enhancement of picosecond UV laser pulses operating at a burst mode with arbitrary burst (macropulse) lengths and repetition rates.

Pulsedpower science and engineering activities at Sandia National Laboratories grew out of a programmatic need for intense radiation sources to advance capabilities in radiographic imaging and to create environments for testing and certifying the hardness of components and systems to radiation in hostile environments. By the early 1970s, scientists in laboratories around the world began utilizing pulsedpower drivers with very short (10s of nanoseconds) pulse lengths for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments. In the United States, Defense Programs within the Department of Energy has sponsored this research. Recent progress in pulsedpower, specifically fast-pulsed-power-driven z pinches, in creating temperatures relevant to ICF has been remarkable. Worldwide developments in pulsedpower technologies and increased applications in both defense and industry are contrasted with ever increasing stress on research and development tiding. The current environment has prompted us at Sandia to evaluate our role in the continued development of pulsedpower science and to consider options for the future. This presentation will highlight our recent progress and provide an overview of our plans as we begin the new millennium.

Fast electrical energy storage or Voltage-Driven Technology (VDT) has dominated fast, high-voltage pulsedpower systems for the past six decades. Fast magnetic energy storage or Current-Driven Technology (CDT) is characterized by 10,000 X higher energy density than VDT and has a great number of other substantial advantages, but it has all but been neglected for all of these decades. The uniform explanation for neglect of CDT technology is invariably that the industry has never been able to make an effective opening switch, which is essential for the use of CDT. Most approaches to opening switches have involved plasma of one sort or another. On a large scale, gaseous plasmas have been used as a conductor to bridge the switch electrodes that provides an opening function when the current wave front propagates through to the output end of the plasma and fully magnetizes the plasma - this is called a Plasma Opening Switch (POS). Opening can be triggered in a POS using a magnetic field to push the plasma out of the A-K gap - this is called a Magnetically Controlled Plasma Opening Switch (MCPOS). On a small scale, depletion of electron plasmas in semiconductor devices is used to affect opening switch behavior, but these devices are relatively low voltage and low current compared to the hundreds of kilo-volts and tens of kilo-amperes of interest to pulsedpower. This work is an investigation into an entirely new approach to opening switch technology that utilizes new materials in new ways. The new materials are Ferroelectrics and using them as an opening switch is a stark contrast to their traditional applications in optics and transducer applications. Emphasis is on use of high performance ferroelectrics with the objective of developing an opening switch that would be suitable for large scale pulsedpowerapplications. Over the course of exploring this new ground, we have discovered new behaviors and properties of these materials that were here to fore unknown. Some of

CAPACITOR DISCHARGE PULSEDPOWER SUPPLY DESIGN FOR RAILGUNS by Jesse H. Black March 2007 Thesis Advisor: Alexander L. Julian Co-Advisor...switched power supply capable of providing 50 kJ from a high voltage capacitor to a railgun . The efficiency with which energy is transferred from a...also produce a smaller electromagnetic pulse. Voltage limitations on the thyristors require two in series acting as a single switch. Railgun

A flexible solid-state resistor comprises a string of ceramic resistors that can be used to charge the capacitors of a linear transformer driver (LTD) used in a pulsedpower machine. The solid-state resistor is able to absorb the energy of a switch prefire, thereby limiting LTD cavity damage, yet has a sufficiently low RC charge time to allow the capacitor to be recharged without disrupting the operation of the pulsedpower machine.

A flexible solid-state resistor comprises a string of ceramic resistors that can be used to charge the capacitors of a linear transformer driver (LTD) used in a pulsedpower machine. The solid-state resistor is able to absorb the energy of a switch prefire, thereby limiting LTD cavity damage, yet has a sufficiently low RC charge time to allow the capacitor to be recharged without disrupting the operation of the pulsedpower machine.

Pulsed photothermal radiometry is a nondestructive technique for measurements of surface and subsurface thermal parameters of a wide variety of materials. A fiber optic pulsed photothermal radiometric system is constructed and its feasibility is demonstrated. The radiometric system includes a pulsed CO2 laser, an IR detector, and two IR transmitting silver halide optical fibers for delivering IR radiation to and from the sample. A weak laser pulse, absorbed by the sample, initially heats the sample surface. The time evolution of the transient emitted IR radiation is measured and analyzed. The results establish the feasibility of using the fiber optic pulsed photothermal radiometric system to measure coating thickness, to detect flaws, and to diagnose thermal damage in tissue. This fiber optic method would be useful for industrial and medical applications.

"Applications of Pulse-Coupled Neural Networks" explores the fields of image processing, including image filtering, image segmentation, image fusion, image coding, image retrieval, and biometric recognition, and the role of pulse-coupled neural networks in these fields. This book is intended for researchers and graduate students in artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, electronic engineering, and computer science. Prof. Yide Ma conducts research on intelligent information processing, biomedical image processing, and embedded system development at the School of Information Sci

Optical tweezers which enables to trap micron to nanometer sized objects by radiation pressure force is utilized for manipulation of particles under a microscope and for measurement of forces between biomolecules. Weak force of optical tweezers causes some limitations such as particle adhesion or steric barrier like lipid membrane in a cell prevent further movement of objects. For biomedical applications we need to overcome these difficulties. We have developed a technique to exert strong instantaneous force by use of a pulse laser beam and to assist conventional optical tweezers. A pulse laser beam has huge instantaneous laser power of more than 1000 times as strong as a conventional continuous-wave laser beam so that the instantaneous force is strong enough to break chemical bonding and molecular force between objects and obstacles. We derive suitable pulse duration for pulse assist of optical tweezers and demonstrate particle manipulation in difficult situations through an experiment of particle removal from sticky surface of glass substrate.

A pulsedpower generator based on a high-voltage Tesla transformer which charges a 3.85 Ω/55 ns water-filled pulse forming line to 300 kV has been developed at Loughborough University as a training tool for pulsedpower students. The generator uses all forms of insulation specific to pulsedpower technology, liquid (oil and water), gas (SF6), and magnetic insulation in vacuum, and a number of fast voltage and current sensors are implemented for diagnostic purposes. A miniature (centimeter-size) plasma opening switch has recently been coupled to the output of the pulse forming line, with the overall system comprising the first phase of a program aimed at the development of a novel repetitive, table-top generator capable of producing 15 GW pulses for high power microwave loads. Technical details of all the generator components and the main experimental results obtained during the program and demonstrations of their performance are presented in the paper, together with a description of the various diagnostic tools involved. In particular, it is shown that the miniature plasma opening switch is capable of reducing the rise time of the input current while significantly increasing the load power. Future plans are outlined in the conclusions.

A design of an instrument to measure the power and shape of radio frequency (RF) pulses operating in a broad frequency range is described. The device is capable of measuring the pulsepower up to 500 W of both CW and extremely short (˜1 μs) RF pulses of arbitrary period. The pulse envelope can be observed on a logarithmic scale on a corresponding instrument output using an inexpensive storage oscilloscope. The instrument consists of a coaxial measurement head, the RF processing circuits and an AD conversion and display unit. The whole device is based on widely available integrated circuits; thus, good reproducibility and adaptability of the design is ensured. Since the construction is intended to be used in particular (but not solely) in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, we found it useful to provide a demonstration of two typical usage scenarios. Other application fields may comprise magnetic resonance imaging, radar and laser technology, power amplifier testing, etc.

A new pulse stream neuron circuit is presented, which can be obtained in the digital CMOS process and combines both the merits of digital circuits and analog ones. The output is expressed by the frequency of the pulses with transfer characteristic, which is correspondent with the ideal sigmoid curve perfectly. Moreover, the pulse-active strategy is introduced into the design of this CMOS pulse stream neuron circuit for the first time in order to reduce the power dissipation, which is applicable to the low-power design of mixed-signal circuits,too. A simple technical process and compact architecture make this circuit work at a higher speed and with lower power dissipation and smaller area.

The bandwidth and versatility of optical devices have revolutionized information technology systems and communication networks. Precise and arbitrary control of an optical field that preserves optical coherence is an important requisite for many proposed photonic technologies. For quantum information applications, a device that allows storage and on-demand retrieval of arbitrary quantum states of light would form an ideal quantum optical memory. Recently, significant progress has been made in implementing atomic quantum memories using electromagnetically induced transparency, photon echo spectroscopy, off-resonance Raman spectroscopy and other atom-light interaction processes. Single-photon and bright-optical-field storage with quantum states have both been successfully demonstrated. Here we present a coherent optical memory based on photon echoes induced through controlled reversible inhomogeneous broadening. Our scheme allows storage of multiple pulses of light within a chosen frequency bandwidth, and stored pulses can be recalled in arbitrary order with any chosen delay between each recalled pulse. Furthermore, pulses can be time-compressed, time-stretched or split into multiple smaller pulses and recalled in several pieces at chosen times. Although our experimental results are so far limited to classical light pulses, our technique should enable the construction of an optical random-access memory for time-bin quantum information, and have potential applications in quantum information processing.

We are developing a new high explosive pulsedpower (HEPP) system based on the 1.4 m long Ranchero generator which was developed in 1999 for driving solid density z-pinch loads. The new application requires approximately 40 MA to implode similar liners, but the liners cannot tolerate the 65 {micro}s, 3 MA current pulse associated with delivering the initial magnetic flux to the 200 nH generator. To circumvent this problem, we have designed a system with an internal start switch and four explosively formed fuse (EFF) opening switches. The integral start switch is installed between the output glide plane and the armature. It functions in the same manner as a standard input crowbar switch when armature motion begins, but initially isolates the load. The circuit is completed during the flux loading phase using post hole convolutes. Each convolute attaches the inner (coaxial) output transmission line to the outside of the outer coax through a penetration of the outer coaxial line. The attachment is made with the conductor of an EFF at each location. The EFFs conduct 0.75 MA each, and are actuated just after the internal start switch connects to the load. EFFs operating at these parameters have been tested in the past. The post hole convolutes must withstand as much as 80 kV at peak dl/dt during the Ranchero load current pulse. We describe the design of this new HEPP system in detail, and give the experimental results available at conference time. In addition, we discuss the work we are doing to test the upper current limits of a single standard size Ranchero module. Calculations have suggested that the generator could function at up to {approx}120 MA, the rule of thumb we follow (1 MA/cm) suggests 90 MA, and simple flux compression calculations, along with the {approx}4 MA seed current available from our capacitor bank, suggests 118 MA is the currently available upper limit.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — An improved efficiency amplifier for high powerpulseapplications at P-Band will be investigated that will support space based RADAR systems. Current P-Band pulsed...

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — An improved efficiency amplifier for high powerpulseapplications at P-Band will be investigated that will support space based RADAR systems. Current P-Band pulsed...

Rf pulse compression is a technique for augmenting the peak power output of a klystron (typically 50--100 MW) to obtain the high peak power required to drive a linear collider at a high accelerating gradient (typically 200 MW/m is required for a gradient of 100 MV/m). The SLED pulse compression system, with a power gain of about 2.6, has been operational on the SLAC linac for more than a decade. Recently, a binary pulse-compression system with a power gain of about 5.2 has been tested up to an output power of 120 MW. Further high-power tests are in progress. Our current effort is focused on prototyping a so-called SLED-II pulse-compression system with a power gain of four. Over-moded TE{sub 01}-mode circular waveguide components, some with novel technical features, are used to reduce losses at the 11.4-GHz operating frequency.

Rf pulse compression is a technique for augmenting the peak power output of a klystron (typically 50--100 MW) to obtain the high peak power required to drive a linear collider at a high accelerating gradient (typically 200 MW/m is required for a gradient of 100 MV/m). The SLED pulse compression system, with a power gain of about 2.6, has been operational on the SLAC linac for more than a decade. Recently, a binary pulse-compression system with a power gain of about 5.2 has been tested up to an output power of 120 MW. Further high-power tests are in progress. Our current effort is focused on prototyping a so-called SLED-II pulse-compression system with a power gain of four. Over-moded TE[sub 01]-mode circular waveguide components, some with novel technical features, are used to reduce losses at the 11.4-GHz operating frequency.

Dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) are used to efficiently generate radiation in the ultraviolet and vacuum-ultraviolet spectral regions (88nm-350nm) by forming rare-gas and rare-gas halide excimers in a transient plasma. Usually, DBD lamps generate the light output quasi-continuously or in bursts with a high degree of stochastic or random variability in the instantaneous UV/VUV intensity. However, regular pulses of high-peak-power UV/VUV, with high pulse-to-pulse reproducibility, are of interest for applications in biology, surface treatment and cleaning, and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. Such pulses can be generated from spatially homogeneous plasmas in a Xe DBD when the discharge is driven by uni-polar voltage pulses of short duration ( 100ns)^1. In the present study, we will report Xe DBD lamp performance and VUV output pulse characteristics for gas pressures up to 2.5bar and excitation conditions tailored for high-peak-power output. The experimental results will be compared to theoretical results from a detailed 1-D computer model of the spatio-temporal evolution of the plasma kinetics and Xe species population densities. ^1R.P.Mildren and R.J.Carman, J.Phys.D, 34, L1-L6, (2001)

Energy-storage devices are needed for applications requiring very high-power over short periods of time. Such devices have various military (rail guns, electromagnetic launchers, and DEW) and commercial applications, such as hybrid electric vehicles, vehicle starting (SLI), and utility peak shaving. The storage and delivery of high levels of burst power can be achieved with a capacitor, flywheel, or rechargeable battery. In order to reduce the weight and volume of many systems they must contain advanced state-of-the-art electrochemical or electromechanical power sources. There is an opportunity and a need to develop energy-storage devices that have improved high-power characteristics compared to existing ultra capacitors, flywheels or rechargeable batteries. Electro Energy, Inc. has been engaged in the development of bipolar nickel-metal hydride batteries, which may fulfil the requirements of some of these applications. This paper describes a module rated at 300 V (255 cells) (6 Ah). The volume of the module is 23 L and the mass is 56 kg. The module is designed to deliver 50 kW pulses of 10 s duration at 50% state-of-charge. Details of the mechanical design of the module, safety considerations, along with the results of initial electrical characterization testing by the customer will be discussed. Some discussion of the possibilities for design optimization is also included.

This book presents practical information on the clinical applications of short pulse laser systems and the techniques for optimizing these applications in a manner that will be relevant to a broad audience, including engineering and medical students as well as researchers, clinicians, and technicians. Short pulse laser systems are useful for both subsurface tissue imaging and laser induced thermal therapy (LITT), which hold great promise in cancer diagnostics and treatment. Such laser systems may be used alone or in combination with optically active nanoparticles specifically administered to the tissues of interest for enhanced contrast in imaging and precise heating during LITT. Mathematical and computational models of short pulse laser-tissue interactions that consider the transient radiative transport equation coupled with a bio-heat equation considering the initial transients of laser heating were developed to analyze the laser-tissue interaction during imaging and therapy. Experiments were first performe...

Pulse trains growing from modulated continuous waves (CWs) are considered, using solutions of the Hirota equation for solitons on a finite background. The results demonstrate that pulses extracted from the maximally compressed trains can propagate preserving their shape and forming robust arrays. The dynamics of double high-powerpulse trains produced by modulated CWs in a model of optical fibers, including the Raman effect and other higher-order terms, is considered in detail too. It is demonstrated that the double trains propagate in a robust form, with frequencies shifted by the Raman effect.

At recent year, with the development of CPA and other amplification technology, laser intensity achieves great increase and laser power can be high to PW(105) now, this ultrashort pulse lasers offer scientists a route to investigate laser-matter interaction in an absolute new regime.So far the researches on ultrashort pulse laser-matter interaction concentrated on infrared regime, yet ultraviolet laser has the advantage in intense field physics and ICF researches for its short wavelength and less nonlinear effects. KrF excimer is the best medium in UV ultrashort pulse amplification for its small saturation energy and high contrast ratio accessible.

An electrothermal thruster that operates in a pulsed mode at low power (pendulum-type thrust stand, and input power levels from 24 to 119 watts are determined from measurements of pulse rate and breakdown voltage. A maximum specific impulse of 305 seconds is achieved with 38% efficiency. A time-dependent, quasi-1D numerical model is developed to evaluate energy losses in the pulsed arcjet. The numerical model uses a time-marching procedure and the MacCormack predictor-corrector algorithm. Viscous and heat transfer effects are incorporated though a friction factor and an average heat transfer coefficient. A numerical study of nozzle parameters, capillary geometry, wall temperature, and pulse energy shows that the performance is insensitive to capillary and nozzle geometry and that thermal characteristics are the dominant factor affecting performance. The specific impulse and efficiency of the pulsed arcjet are found to be sensitive to wall temperature due to heat transfer losses in the subsonic region. A pulse-forming electrical circuit is developed to reduce energy losses in the storage capacitor, and greater than 85% of the initial stored energy is transferred to the arc in a unipolar pulse. A high current diode installed across the capacitor terminals is used to eliminate voltage reversals in the current. The experimental breakdown voltage of the helium gas between the electrodes is found to follow a Paschen relationship where the minimum electrode separation distance is used in evaluating the data.

We investigate hollow-core fibers for fiber delivery of high power ultrashort laser pulses. We use numerical techniques to design an anti-resonant hollow-core fiber having one layer of non-touching tubes to determine which structures offer the best optical properties for the delivery of high power...... picosecond pulses. A novel fiber with 7 tubes and a core of 30 mu m was fabricated and it is here described and characterized, showing remarkable low loss, low bend loss, and good mode quality. Its optical properties are compared to both a 10 mu m and a 18 mu m core diameter photonic band gap hollow......-core fiber. The three fibers are characterized experimentally for the delivery of 22 picosecond pulses at 1032nm. We demonstrate flexible, diffraction limited beam delivery with output average powers in excess of 70W. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America...

Veloce is a medium-voltage, high-current, compact pulsedpower generator developed for isentropic and shock compression experiments. Because of its increased availability and ease of operation, Veloce is well suited for studying isentropic compression experiments (ICE) in much greater detail than previously allowed with larger pulsedpower machines such as the Z accelerator. Since the compact pulsedpower technology used for dynamic material experiments has not been previously used, it is necessary to examine several key issues to ensure that accurate results are obtained. In the present experiments, issues such as panel and sample preparation, uniformity of loading, and edge effects were extensively examined. In addition, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations using the ALEGRA code were performed to interpret the experimental results and to design improved sample/panel configurations. Examples of recent ICE studies on aluminum are presented.

Full Text Available One of the most fundamental processes in the Universe, nucleosynthesis of elements drives energy production in stars as well as the creation of all atoms heavier than hydrogen. To harness this process and open new ways for energy production, we must recreate some of the extreme conditions in which it occurs. We present results of experiments using a pulsedpower facility to induce collective nuclear interactions producing stable nuclei of virtually every element in the periodic table. A high-power electron beam pulse striking a small metallic target is used to create the extreme dynamic environment. Material analysis studies detect an anomalously high presence of new chemical elements in the remnants of the exploded target supporting theoretical conjectures of the experiment. These results provide strong motivation to continue our research looking for additional proofs that heavy element nucleosynthesis is possible in pulsedpower laboratory.

We present the design of a voltage pulse generator controlled by an IBM or compatible AT Personal Computer (PC) capable of synthesizing some of the voltage pulse wave forms commonly used in electrochemical studies. The included signals are: differential pulse voltametry, differential normal pulse voltametry, and differential pulse amperometry. Additionally, a triangular wave form and a constant-voltage signal, used in the pretreatment of carbon fiber microelectrodes for neurochemical analysis, are also available. Operating the generator imposes a minimum of restrictions on the specification of the duration, amplitude, and type of wave shapes. Low-cost PC-based design allows for compatibility, portability, and versatility. The operating ranges of the wave form parameters for the three voltametric signals are: initial voltage, -0.9-+0.9 V; step amplitude, 0.1-900 mV; period, 6 ms-60 s; measuring pulse amplitude, 0.1-900 mV; measuring pulse duration, 2 ms-20 s; prepulse duration, 2 ms-20 s. In the electrode pretreatment mode, the operating ranges are: amplitude, 0-±5 V; duration, unlimited; frequency, 15-240 Hz. The generator uses its own time base for the generation of all signals, thereby rendering it independent of processor clock speed or power-line frequency. The results of the experimental evaluation indicate that the system is accurate within ±10% of the expected values, taking into account the errors associated with the signal synthesis and the digitizing process. The maximum achievable scan rate is 500 V/s, and the highest frequency for the triangular wave form is 240 Hz. Therefore, the pulse generator could be used for fast cyclic voltametry (FCV). FCV and other wave forms could be added through software modules, without any hardware changes. We conclude that the PC-based electrochemistry pulse generator represents an economical and flexible alternative for electroanalytical applications.

Well drilling machines should have as high efficiency factor as it is possible. This work proposes factors that are affected by change of input signal pulse curve. A series of runs are conducted on mathematical model of hydraulic-poweredpulse machine. From this experiment, interrelations between input pulse curve and construction parameters are found. Results of conducted experiment are obtained with the help of the mathematical model, which is created in Simulink Matlab. Keywords - mathematical modelling; impact machine; output signal amplitude; input signal curve.

simulation results were shown in Fig. 11.) 28 14. One of the two reference MatLab Simulink models for the study of the effect of HESMs and a pulsed load...the Megawatt Power Module 44 25 Block diagram of the MPM system - two flywheels per skid configuration 45 26 MatLab Simulink model of a two...Network McKttile Fig. 14. One of the two reference MatLab Simulink models for the study of the effect of HESMs and a pulsed load on a ship’s power

The design, construction and implementation of a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) -based pulse programmer for pulsed-electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) experiments is described. The FPGA pulse programmer offers advantages in design flexibility and cost over previous pulse programmers, that are based on commercial digital delay generators, logic pattern generators, and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs. The FPGA pulse progammer features a novel transition-based algorithm and command protocol, that is optimized for the timing structure required for most pulsed magnetic resonance experiments. The algorithm was implemented by using a Spartan-6 FPGA (Xilinx), which provides an easily accessible and cost effective solution for FPGA interfacing. An auxiliary board was designed for the FPGA-instrument interface, which buffers the FPGA outputs for increased power consumption and capacitive load requirements. Device specifications include: Nanosecond pulse formation (transition edge rise/fall times, ≤3 ns), low jitter (≤150 ps), large number of channels (16 implemented; 48 available), and long pulse duration (no limit). The hardware and software for the device were designed for facile reconfiguration to match user experimental requirements and constraints. Operation of the device is demonstrated and benchmarked by applications to 1-D electron spin echo envelope modulation (ESEEM) and 2-D hyperfine sublevel correlation (HYSCORE) experiments. The FPGA approach is transferrable to applications in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR; magnetic resonance imaging, MRI), and to pulse perturbation and detection bandwidths in spectroscopies up through the optical range.

This report describes work carried out at the Center for Electromechanics at The University of Texas at Austin (CEM-UT). A baseline design of the Nova Upgrade has been completed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Nova Upgrade is an 18 beamline Nd: glass laser design utilizing fully relayed 4x4 30 cm aperture segmented optical components. The laser thus consists of 288 independent beamlets nominally producing 1.5 to 2.0 MJ of 0.35 {mu}m light in a 3 to 5 ns pulse. The laser design is extremely flexible and will allow a wide range of pulses to irradiate ICF targets. This facility will demonstrate ignition/gain and the scientific feasibility of ICF for energy and defense applications. The pulsedpower requirements for the Nova Upgrade are given. CEM-UT was contracted to study and develop a design for a homopolar generator/inductor (HPG/inductor) opening switch system which would satisfy the pulsedpower supply requirements of the Nova Upgrade. The Nd:glass laser amplifiers used in the Nova Upgrade will be powered by light from xenon flashlamps. The pulsedpower supply for the Nova Upgrade powers the xenon flashlamps. This design and study was for a power supply to drive flashlamps.

Full Text Available It has been shown in the past that pulsed laser systems operating in the so-called “burst mode” are a beneficial approach to generate high peak power laser pulses at high repetition rates suitable for various applications. So far, most high-energy burst-mode laser systems put great effort into generating a homogeneous energy distribution across the burst duration, e.g., by shaping the pump pulse. In this work, we present a new shaping technique, which is able to produce arbitrary energy distributions within the burst by pre-shaping the seed pulse burst with a Pockels cell. Furthermore, this technique allows for the precompensation of any static modulations across the burst, which may be introduced during the subsequent amplification process. Therefore, a pulse burst with a uniform energy distribution can also be generated. The method is tested with an ultra-short pulse burst mode laser amplifier system producing bursts of a 1 ms duration with a pulse repetition rate of 1 MHz and a maximum output power of 800 W during the burst. Furthermore, a method to predict the influence of the amplifier on a non-uniformly shaped burst is presented and successfully tested to produce a pre-defined pulse shape after amplification.

Full Text Available In many applications the light impinging on photodiode surface is pulsed. The change in parameter values in the equivalent circuit of photodiode is important if the amplitude of light pulses are large. In this situation, the change of parameter values with the amplitude of light pulse is nonlinear. Because of this, the nonlinear model of photodiode has been used in this search. By the reasons of photoconductive operation mode is a fast operation, the photoconductive circuit has been examined. In this study, according to the nonlinear behavior of photodiode at pulsed high radiant powers the changes of switching times have been investigated by using SPICE program and the changing of switching times with increasing radiant power has been showed.

The main objective of staff exchanges is to facilitate cooperative activities between PNL staff and U.S. private industry. Funding for the projects is provided by the DOE Office of Energy Research Laboratory Technology Transfer Program. Dr. Matthew Donnelly, a Research Engineer in the Applied Physics Center, Initiated a PNL disclosure for Pulse Amplitude Synthesis and Control (PASC) converter intellectual property protection in 1993. PASC converter research at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) has been funded through the ETDI LDRD program. Recent work has centered on building the three-phase 20kW laboratory unit, the development of control algorithms and the study of the application of PASC converters in a 25MW wind power plant (through the staff exchange with RLA reported on here). An overview and description of the PASC converter is included as Appendix A.

Quality and features of tele-homecare are improved by information and communication technologies. In this context, a pulse oximeter-based mobile biotelemetry application is developed. With this application, patients can measure own oxygen saturation and heart rate through Bluetooth pulse oximeter at home. Bluetooth virtual serial port protocol is used to send the test results from pulse oximeter to the smart phone. These data are converted into XML type and transmitted to remote web server database via smart phone. In transmission of data, GPRS, WLAN or 3G can be used. The rule based algorithm is used in the decision making process. By default, the threshold value of oxygen saturation is 80; the heart rate threshold values are 40 and 150 respectively. If the patient's heart rate is out of the threshold values or the oxygen saturation is below the threshold value, an emergency SMS is sent to the doctor. By this way, the directing of an ambulance to the patient can be performed by doctor. The doctor for different patients can change these threshold values. The conversion of the result of the evaluated data to SMS XML template is done on the web server. Another important component of the application is web-based monitoring of pulse oximeter data. The web page provides access to of all patient data, so the doctors can follow their patients and send e-mail related to the evaluation of the disease. In addition, patients can follow own data on this page. Eight patients have become part of the procedure. It is believed that developed application will facilitate pulse oximeter-based measurement from anywhere and at anytime.

Systems, such as Shiva Star, Atlas and magnetic-flux compression generators, that can deliver several megajoules at currents above 10 MA, offer the opportunity for many interesting experiments in controlled fusion technology and basic material dynamics. Typical current rise-times of a few microseconds result, even with low inductance (<20 nH) circuitry, because several megajoules are delivered at less than 200 kV. This means that conductor surfaces can move significantly relative to the skin-layer thickness, and surface plasmas can interfere with power flow. Success with such multi- megampere technology, therefore, requires considerable attention to the detailed design of joints and conductor surfaces. The paper discusses these and other design considerations. It also describes opportunities enabled by operation above 10 MA. (12 refs).

This paper shows, using computer EMTP simulations, some preliminary results of applying pulse amplitude synthesis and control (PASC) technology to single-source level voltage converter system. The method can be applied to any single terminal pair source with appropriate modifications in power extraction interface and computer control program to match source and load impedance characteristics. The PASC realization as discussed here employs banks of transformers, one bank per phase, in which the primaries are connected in parallel through a switch matrix to the dc source. Two opposite polarity primaries per transformer are pulsed alternatively in time to produce an oscillatory sinusoidal output waveform. PASC conversion system capabilities to produce both leading and lagging power factor power output in single-phase and three-phase {Delta} or Y configurations are illustrated. EMTP simulations are used to demonstrate the converter capabilities. Also included are discussions regarding harmonics and potential control strategies to adapt the converter to an application or to minimize harmonics.

In pulsed gas lasers, the excitation of the active medium is produced through the discharge of a storage capacitor. Performances of these lasers were essentially linked to the type of switch used and also to its mode of operation. Thyratrons are the most common switches. Nevertheless, their technological limitations do not allow a high repetition rate, necessary for optimization of the output power of this type of laser. These limitations can be surpassed by combining the thyratron to a one stage of a magnetic pulse compression circuit. The mpc driver can improve the laser excitation pulse rise time and increase the repetition rate, increasing the laser output power of pulsed gas laser such as; nitrogen, excimer and copper vapor lasers. We have proposed in this paper a new configuration of magnetic pulse compression, the magnetic switch is place in our case in the charge circuit, and while in the typical utilization of magnetic pulse compression, it is placed in the discharge circuit. In this paper, we are more particularly interested in the design and the modeling of a saturate inductance that represents the magnetic switch in the proposed configuration of a thyratron - mpc circuit combination.

applied pulsedpower technology are presented. 15. SUBJECT TERMS 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF ABSTRACT SAR 18. NUMBER OF PAGES...pathogens, such as pestis yersinia or hemorrhagic variola, would require the detection of a single microbe, a difficult task in any situation and an

Magnetic insulation is crucial in the operation of large pulsedpower systems. Particular attention will be paid to describing magnetic insulation in realistic pulsedpower systems. A theoretical model is developed that allows the production of self consistent magnetically insulated laminar flows in perturbed cylindrical systems given only the electron density profile. The theory is checked and justified by detailed comparisons with results from a 2-dimensional electromagnetic code, MASK. The procedure followed in the theoretical development is to use the relativistic Vlasov equation, Ampere's law and Gauss' law, to obtain a relation between the density profile and the velocity profile for insulated flows. Given the density profile and the corresponding derived velocity profile, a self consistent flow solution is obtained by means of Maxwell's equations. It is checked by taking a special case (corresponding to no perturbations) which results in the well known Brillouin flow theory. Emphasis is placed on determining the magnetic insulation threshold of a pulsedpower system employing a plasma erosion opening switch. The procedure employed in the computational study is to vary critical aspects of the pulsedpower system and then note whether magnetic insulation breaks down. The point at which magnetic insulation breaks down (as a function of geometry, load impedance, and applied voltage) is the magnetic insulation threshold for the system.

The low-frequency pulse-tube cryocooler has been a workhorse for large heat lift applications. However, the highfrequency pulse tube has to date not seen the widespread use in tactical infrared applications that Stirling cryocoolers have had, despite significant advantages in terms of exported vibrations and lifetime. Thales Cryogenics has produced large series of high-frequency pulse-tube cryocoolers for non-infrared applications since 2005. However, the use of Thales pulse-tube cryocoolers for infrared sensing has to date largely been limited to high-end space applications. In this paper, the performances of existing available off-the-shelf pulse-tube cryocoolers are examined versus typical tactical infrared requirements. A comparison is made on efficiency, power density, reliability, and cost. An outlook is given on future developments that could bring the pulse-tube into the mainstream for tactical infrared applications.

High-power laser generation using Yb-doped double-clad fibres with conversion efficiencies in excess of 80% have attracted much attention during the last decade due to their inherent advantages in terms of very high efficiency, no misalignment due to in-built intracore fibre Bragg gratings, low thermal problems due to large surface to volume ratio, diffraction-limited beam quality, compactness, reliability and fibre-optic beam delivery. Yb-doped fibres can also provide a wide emission band from ∼1010 nm to ∼1170 nm, which makes it a versatile laser medium to realize continuous-wave (CW), Q-switched short pulse, and mode-locked ultrashort pulse generation for various applications. In this article, a review of Yb-doped CW and pulsed fibre lasers along with our study on self-pulsing dynamics in CW fibre lasers to find its role in high-power fibre laser development and the physical mechanisms involved in its generation has been described. A study on the generation of high-power CWfibre laser of 165Woutput power and generation of high peak power nanosecond pulses from acousto-optic Q-switched fibre laser has also been presented.

In this paper an electronic ballast for pulsed operation of dielectric barrier discharges (DBD) is presented. The converter is designed as a transformer coupled square wave power source optimized for capacitive loads like DBD. The special features are the bipolar trapezoid waveform with variable slew rate (dU/dt), duty cycle, frequency and amplitude of the output voltage, which is balanced to ground. The power stage is designed in zero voltage switching technology. The ballast is primarily designed to investigate the discharge characteristics of DBD in dependence on the waveform parameters. A simple electrical DBD model is presented, which allows to predict the external DBD voltage and the discharge power in dependence of slew rate and duty cycle. The paper is closed with some experimental results of pulse XeCl*-excimer lamps.

For a 60 Tesla, 100 millisecond long pulse magnet five 64 MW (87.6 MVA) power converter modules have been installed. Each module provides a no-load voltage of 4.18 kV and a full load voltage of 3.20 kV at the rated current of 20 kA. The modules are connected to a 1,430 MVA/650 MJ inertial energy storage generator set, which is operated at 21 kV and frequencies between 60 and 42 Hz. They are designed to provide the rated power output for 2 seconds once every hour. Each module consists of two 21 kV/3.1 kV cast coil transformers and two 6-pulse rectifiers connected in parallel without an interphase reactor, forming a 12-pulse converter module. As far as possible standard high power industrial converter components were used, operated closer to their allowable limits. The converters are controlled by three programmable high speed controllers. In this paper the design of the pulsed converters, including control and special considerations for protection schemes with the converters supplying a mutually coupled magnet system, is detailed. Test results of the converters driving an ohmic-inductive load for 2 seconds at 20 kA and 3.2 kV are presented.

Pulse compressors for ultrafast lasers have been identified as a technology gap in the push towards high peak power systems with high average powers for industrial and scientific applications. Gratings for ultrashort (sub-150fs) pulse compressors are metallic and can absorb a significant percentage of laser energy resulting in up to 40% loss as well as thermal issues which degrade on-target performance. We have developed a next generation gold grating technology which we have scaled to the petawatt-size. This resulted in improvements in efficiency, uniformity and processing as compared to previous substrate etched gratings for high average power. This new design has a deposited dielectric material for the grating ridge rather than etching directly into the glass substrate. It has been observed that average powers as low as 1W in a compressor can cause distortions in the on-target beam. We have developed and tested a method of actively cooling diffraction gratings which, in the case of gold gratings, can support a petawatt peak power laser with up to 600W average power. We demonstrated thermo-mechanical modeling of a grating in its use environment and benchmarked with experimental measurement. Multilayer dielectric (MLD) gratings are not yet used for these high peak power, ultrashort pulse durations due to their design challenges. We have designed and fabricated broad bandwidth, low dispersion MLD gratings suitable for delivering 30 fs pulses at high average power. This new grating design requires the use of a novel Out Of Plane (OOP) compressor, which we have modeled, designed, built and tested. This prototype compressor yielded a transmission of 90% for a pulse with 45 nm bandwidth, and free of spatial and angular chirp. In order to evaluate gratings and compressors built in this project we have commissioned a joule-class ultrafast Ti:Sapphire laser system. Combining the grating cooling and MLD technologies developed here could enable petawatt laser systems to

The dependence of pulse temporal properties (pulse width, pulse rise width and pulse decay width) on energy is power-law function. Some correlated relationships between the power-law indices of the pulse time properties on energy and the spectral lags, relative spectral lags, spectral parameters of band function, and photon flux using a well-separated long-duration -ray burst (GRB) pulse sample is demonstrated here. We argue that the curvature effect can explain the correlated properties.

Experimental results of the observation of superradiation from intense, subnanosecond electron bunches moving through a periodic waveguide and interacting with a backward propagating TM sub 0 sub 1 wave are presented. The ultra-short microwave pulses in Ka, W, and G band were generated with repetition frequencies of up to 25 Hz. Observation of RF breakdown of ambient air, as well as direct measurements by hot-carrier germanium detectors, leads to an estimate of the peak power as high as 60-120 MW for the 300-400 ps pulses at 38 GHz. The initial observation of 75 GHz 10-15 MW radiation pulses with duration less than 150 ps, and of 150 GHz microwave spikes with a risetime of 75ps are also reported. Comparison with simulations is discussed as well.

The major goal of this project is to establish the feasibility of a power conversion technology which will permit the direct synthesis of computer programmable pulsepower. Feasibility will be established in this project by demonstration of direct synthesis of commercial frequency power by means of computer control. The power input to the conversion system is assumed to be a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) Faraday connected generator which may be viewed as a multi-terminal d.c. source. This consolidation/inversion process is referred to subsequently as Pulse-Amplitude-Synthesis-and-Control (PASC). A secondary goal is to deliver a controller subsystem consisting of a computer, software, and computer interface board which can serve as one of the building blocks for a possible Phase 2 prototype system. This report covers the initial six months portion of the project and includes discussions on the following areas: (1) selection of a control computer with software tool kit for development of the PASC controller contract requirement; (2) problem formulation considerations for simulation of the PASC technique on digital computers; (3) initial simulation results for the PASC transformer, including simulation results obtained using SPICE and the INTEG program; (4) a survey of available gate-turn-off (GTO's), power semiconductors, power field effect transistors (PFET's), and fiber optics signal cabling and transducers.

A double Blumlein pulse generator is constructed using a coaxial cable. This power supply is capable of providing a voltage up to 20 kV across a matched load and 40kV across an open load with a charging voltage of 10 kV. It is designed to provide a pulse width of 110ns. A rise time of ∼10ns is obtained with present spark gap. A rotating spark gap is also designed and constructed to get a pulse repetition rate of 25Hz. Although, in the present work this pulse generator is used to study the streamer discharge in air, it is useful in many other applications also.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has converted a commercial 200kV transmission electron microscope (TEM) into an ultrafast, nanoscale diagnostic tool for material science studies. The resulting Dynamic Transmission Electron Microscope (DTEM) has provided a unique tool for the study of material phase transitions, reaction front analyses, and other studies in the fields of chemistry, materials science, and biology. The TEM's thermionic electron emission source was replaced with a fast photocathode and a laser beam path was provided for ultraviolet surface illumination. The resulting photoelectron beam gives downstream images of 2 and 20 ns exposure times at 100 and 10 nm spatial resolution. A separate laser, used as a pump pulse, is used to heat, ignite, or shock samples while the photocathode electron pulses, carefully time-synchronized with the pump, function as probe in fast transient studies. The device functions in both imaging and diffraction modes. A laser upgrade is underway to make arbitrary cathode pulse trains of variable pulse width of 10-1000 ns. Along with a fast e-beam deflection scheme, a 'movie mode' capability will be added to this unique diagnostic tool. This talk will review conventional electron microscopy and its limitations, discuss the development and capabilities of DTEM, in particularly addressing the prime and pulsedpower considerations in the design and fabrication of the DTEM, and conclude with the presentation of a deflector and solid-state pulser design for Movie-Mode DTEM.

This paper has established a compact pulsedpower system (PPS) of 16 MJ for electromagnetic rail gun. The PPS consists of pulsed forming network (PFN), chargers, monitoring system, and current junction. The PFN is composed of 156 pulse forming units (PFUs). Every PFU can be triggered simultaneously or sequentially in order to obtain different total current waveforms. The whole device except general control table is divided into two frameworks with size of 7.5 m × 2.2 m × 2.3 m. It is important to estimate the discharge current of PFU accurately for the design of the whole electromagnetic launch system. In this paper, the on-state characteristics of pulse thyristor have been researched to improve the estimation accuracy. The on-state characteristics of pulse thyristor are expressed as a logarithmic function based on experimental data. The circuit current waveform of the single PFU agrees with the simulating one. On the other hand, the coaxial discharge cable is a quick wear part in PFU because the discharge current will be up to dozens of kA even hundreds of kA. In this article, the electromagnetic field existing in the coaxial cable is calculated by finite element method. On basis of the calculation results, the structure of cable is optimized in order to improve the limit current value of the cable. At the end of the paper, the experiment current wave of the PPS with the load of rail gun is provided.

An on-line measuring system, including an aperture-coupling structure and a novel high-powerpulse detector, is proposed in this paper to measure the output pulses from high-power 0.14THz surface wave oscillator (SWO). At first a T-type coupling structure between the TM{sub 01} mode of circular waveguide with radius of 6mm and TE{sub 10} mode of rectangular waveguide WR6 is designed. Based on loose coupling theory,the coupling degree of this structure is derived and calculated, reaching about -47dB with the aperture radius of 0.4mm and length of 0.5mm. The reasonable coincidence is found between the theoretical computation and numerical simulation employing the three-dimensional finite difference time domain method. Then a novel high-power terahertz pulse detector based on hot electron effect in semiconductors is developed for the detection of output pulses from T-type coupling structure. With hot electron theory, the working principle of the detector is elucidated, also its sensitivity is simply analyzed, showing that this detector is capable of handling the pulsepower as high as 2kW. The present 0.14THz on-line measuring system would be convenient to monitor the terahertz pulse shape and pulsepower during the application researches of SWO besides increasing the accuracy of its pulsepower measurement.

The development of ambulatory arterial pulse oximetry is key to longer term monitoring and treatment of cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. The investigation presented in this paper will assist the designer of an ambulatory pulse oximetry monitor in minimizing the overall LED power consumption (P LED,TOT) levels by analyzing the lowest achievable limit as constrained by the optical components, circuitry implementation and final SpO2 reading accuracy required. LED duty cycle (D LED) reduction and light power (P LED,ON) minimization are proposed as methods to reduce P LED,TOT. Bandwidth and signal quality calculations are carried out in order to determine the required P LED,TOT as a function of the different noise sources.

A three-dimensional, fully electromagnetic model of the principal pulsed-power components of the 26-MA ZR accelerator [D. H. McDaniel , in Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Dense Z-Pinches (AIP, New York, 2002), p. 23] has been developed. This large-scale simulation model tracks the evolution of electromagnetic waves through the accelerator’s intermediate-storage capacitors, laser-triggered gas switches, pulse-forming lines, water switches, triplate transmission lines, and water convolute to the vacuum insulator stack. The insulator-stack electrodes are coupled to a transmission-line circuit model of the four-level magnetically insulated vacuum-transmission-line section and double-post-hole convolute. The vacuum-section circuit model is terminated by a one-dimensional self-consistent dynamic model of an imploding z-pinch load. The simulation results are compared with electrical measurements made throughout the ZR accelerator, and are in good agreement with the data, especially for times until peak load power. This modeling effort demonstrates that 3D electromagnetic models of large-scale, multiple-module, pulsed-power accelerators are now computationally tractable. This, in turn, presents new opportunities for simulating the operation of existing pulsed-power systems used in a variety of high-energy-density-physics and radiographic applications, as well as even higher-power next-generation accelerators before they are constructed.

The development of a linear piston-type electric pulse-power generator capable of powering electric guns and EM (rail and coil) guns and ET guns, presently under development, is discussed. The pulse-power generator consists of a cylindrical armature pushed by gases from the combustion of fuel or propellant through an externally produced magnetic field. An arrangement of electrodes and connecting straps serves to extract current from the moving armature and to send it to an external load (the electric gun).

The major goal of this research project is to establish the feasibility of a power conversion technology which will permit the direct synthesis of computer programmable pulsepower. Feasibility has been established in this project by demonstration of direct synthesis of commercial frequency power by means of computer control. The power input to the conversion system is assumed to be a Faraday connected MHD generator which may be viewed as a multi-terminal dc source and is simulated for the purpose of this demonstration by a set of dc power supplies. This consolidation/inversion (CI), process will be referred to subsequently as Pulse Amplitude Synthesis and Control (PASC). A secondary goal is to deliver a controller subsystem consisting of a computer, software, and computer interface board which can serve as one of the building blocks for a possible phase II prototype system. This report period work summarizes the accomplishments and covers the high points of the two year project. 6 refs., 41 figs.

A pulse swallowing frequency divider with low power and compact structure is presented.One of the DFFs in the divided by 2/3 prescaler is controlled by the modulus control signal,and automatically powered off when it has no contribution to the operation of the prescaler.The DFFs in the program counter and the swallow counter are shared to compose a compact structure,which reduces the power consumption further.The proposed multi-modulus frequency divider was implemented in a standard 65 nm CMOS process with an area of 28 ×22 μm2.The power consumption of the divider is 0.6 mW under 1.2 V supply voltage when operating at 988 MHz.

Results are presented for design of a high-power microwave switch for operation at 34.3 GHz, intended for use in an active RF pulse compressor. The active element in the switch is a ring of ferroelectric material, whose dielectric constant can be rapidly changed by application of a high-voltage pulse. As envisioned, two of these switches would be built into a pair of delay lines, as in SLED-II at SLAC, so as to allow 30-MW μs-length Ka-band pulses to be compressed in time by a factor-of-9 and multiplied in amplitude to generate 200 MW peak powerpulses. Such high-powerpulses could be used for testing and evaluation of high-gradient mm-wave accelerator structures, for example. Evaluation of the switch design was carried out with an X-band (11.43 GHz) prototype, built to incorporate all the features required for the Ka-band version.

Results are presented for design of a high-power microwave switch for operation at 34.3 GHz, intended for use in an active RF pulse compressor. The active element in the switch is a ring of ferroelectric material, whose dielectric constant can be rapidly changed by application of a high-voltage pulse. As envisioned, two of these switches would be built into a pair of delay lines, as in SLED-II at SLAC, so as to allow 30-MW μs-length Ka-band pulses to be compressed in time by a factor-of-9 and multiplied in amplitude to generate 200 MW peak powerpulses. Such high-powerpulses could be used for testing and evaluation of high-gradient mm-wave accelerator structures, for example. Evaluation of the switch design was carried out with an X-band (11.43 GHz) prototype, built to incorporate all the features required for the Ka-band version.

We report on a Yb:YAG laser amplifier for ultrashort pulseapplications at kW-class average power. The laser uses two large-aperture, disk-type gain elements fabricated from composite ceramic YAG material, and a multi-pass extraction architecture to obtain high gain in a chirped-pulse amplification system. The disks are edge-pumped, thus allowing for reduced doping of host material with laser ions, which translates to lower lasing threshold and lower heat dissipation in the Yb:YAG material. The latter makes it possible to amplify a near diffraction-limited seed without significant thermo-optical distortions. This work presents results of testing the laser amplifier with relay optics configured for energy extraction with up to 40 passes through the disks. Applications for the ultrashort pulse laser amplifier include producing laser-induced plasma channel, laser material ablation, and laser acceleration of atomic particles.

The design, construction, and testing of high frequency, high voltage pulsepower supply are reported. The purpose of the power supply is to generate dielectric barrier discharges for industrial applications. The power supply is compact and has the advantage of low cost, over current protection, and convenient control for voltage and frequency selection. The power supply can generate high voltage pulses of up to 45 kV at the repetitive frequency range of 1 kHz-50 kHz with 1.2 kW input power. The output current of the power supply is limited to 500 mA. The pulse rise time and fall time are less than 2 μs and the pulse width is 2 μs. The power supply is short circuit proof and can withstand variable plasma load conditions. The power supply mainly consists of a half bridge series resonant converter to charge an intermediate capacitor, which discharges through a step-up transformer at high frequency to generate high voltage pulses. Semiconductor switches and amorphous cores are used for power modulation at higher frequencies. The power supply is tested with quartz tube dielectric barrier discharge load and worked stably. The design details and the performance of the power supply on no load and dielectric barrier discharge load are presented.

The pulsepower capability (PPC) represents one of the parameters that describe the performance behavior of Lithium-ion batteries independent on the application. Consequently, extended information about the Li-ion battery PPC and its dependence on the operating conditions become necessary. Thus......, this paper analyzes the power capability characteristic of a 13Ah high power Lithium Titanate Oxide-based battery and its dependence on temperature, load current and state-of-charge. Furthermore, a model to predict the discharging PPC of the battery cell at different temperatures and load currents for three...

The pulsepower capability (PPC) represents one of the parameters that describe the performance behavior of Lithium-ion batteries independent on the application. Consequently, extended information about the Li-ion battery PPC and its dependence on the operating conditions become necessary. Thus......, this paper analyzes the power capability characteristic of a 13Ah high power Lithium Titanate Oxide-based battery and its dependence on temperature, load current and state-of-charge. Furthermore, a model to predict the discharging PPC of the battery cell at different temperatures and load currents for three...

In a laser plasma accelerator (LPA), a short and intense laser pulse propagating in a plasma drives a wakefield (a plasma wave with a relativistic phase velocity) that can sustain extremely large electric fields, enabling compact accelerating structures. Potential LPA applications include compact radiation sources and high energy linear colliders. We propose and study plasma wave excitation by an incoherent combination of a large number of low energy laser pulses (i.e., without constraining the pulse phases). We show that, in spite of the incoherent nature of electromagnetic fields within the volume occupied by the pulses, the excited wakefield is regular and its amplitude is comparable or equal to that obtained using a single, coherent pulse with the same energy. These results provide a path to the next generation of LPA-based applications, where incoherently combined multiple pulses may enable high repetition rate, high average power LPAs.

Because of the increasing in power density of electronic devices for medium and high powerapplication, reliabilty of these devices is of great interest. Understanding the avalanche behaviour of a power device has become very important in these last years because it gives an indication of the maximum energy ratings which can be seen as an index of the device ruggedness. A good description of this behaviour is given by the static IV blocking characteristc. In order to avoid self heating, very relevant in high power devices, very short pulses of current have to be used, whose value can change from few milliamps up to tens of amps. The most used method to generate short pulses is the TLP (Transmission Line Pulse) test, which is based on charging the equivalent capacitance of a transmission line to high value of voltage and subsequently discharging it onto a load. This circuit let to obtain very short square pulses but it is mostly used for evaluate the ESD capability of semiconductor and, in this environment, it generates pulses of low amplitude which are not high enough to characterize the avalanche behaviour of high power devices . Advanced TLP circuit able to generate high current are usually very expensive and often suffer of distorption of the output pulse. In this article is proposed a simple, low cost circuit, based on a boosted-TLP configuration, which is capable to produce very square pulses of about one hundreds of nanosecond with amplitude up to some tens of amps. A prototype is implemented which can produce pulses up to 20A of amplitude with 200 ns of duration which can characterize power devices up to 1600V of breakdown voltage. Usage of microcontroller based logic make the circuit very flexible. Results of SPICE simulation are provided, together with experimental results. To prove the effectiveness of the circuit, the I-V blocking characteristics of two commercial devices, namely a 600V PowerMOS and a 1200V Trench-IGBT, are measured at different

A number of schemes were examined to provide a long current pulse for the Horn. These included multiple power supplies, larger capacitor banks as well as the selected design, a pulse transformer. The pulse transformer scheme was selected because modification to the existing short pulsepower supply were minimized as well as the fact that a pulse transformer with nearly the desired characteristics has been built and utilized at CERN. (4 refs).

We describe a very-low power consumption circuit for processing the pulses from a semiconductor radiation detector. The circuit was designed for use with a cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detector for unattended monitoring of stored nuclear materials. The device is intended to be battery powered and operate at low duty-cycles over a long period of time. This system will provide adequate performance for medium resolution gamma-ray pulse-height spectroscopy applications. The circuit incorporates the functions of a charge sensitive preamplifier, shaping amplifier, and peak sample and hold circuit. An application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) version of the design has been designed, built and tested. With the exception of the input field effect transistor (FET), the circuit is constructed using bipolar components. In this paper the design philosophy and measured performance characteristics of the circuit are described.

Power Electronics Basics: Operating Principles, Design, Formulas, and Applications provides fundamental knowledge for the analysis and design of modern power electronic devices. This concise and user-friendly resource:Explains the basic concepts and most important terms of power electronicsDescribes the power assemblies, control, and passive components of semiconductor power switchesCovers the control of power electronic devices, from mathematical modeling to the analysis of the electrical processesAddresses pulse-width modulation, power quality control, and multilevel, modular, and multicell

QCLs are becoming the most important sources of laser radiation in the midwave infrared (MWIR) and longwave infrared (LWIR) regions because of their size, weight, power and reliability advantages over other laser sources in the same spectral regions. The availability of multiwatt RT operation QCLs from 3.5 μm to >16 μm with wall plug efficiency of 10% or higher is hastening the replacement of traditional sources such as OPOs and OPSELs in many applications. QCLs can replace CO2 lasers in many low powerapplications. Of the two leading groups in improvements in QCL performance, Pranalytica is the commercial organization that has been supplying the highest performance QCLs to various customers for over four year. Using a new QCL design concept, the non-resonant extraction [1], we have achieved CW/RT power of >4.7 W and WPE of >17% in the 4.4 μm - 5.0 μm region. In the LWIR region, we have recently demonstrated QCLs with CW/RT power exceeding 1 W with WPE of nearly 10 % in the 7.0 μm-10.0 μm region. In general, the high power CW/RT operation requires use of TECs to maintain QCLs at appropriate operating temperatures. However, TECs consume additional electrical power, which is not desirable for handheld, battery-operated applications, where system power conversion efficiency is more important than just the QCL chip level power conversion efficiency. In high duty cycle pulsed (quasi-CW) mode, the QCLs can be operated without TECs and have produced nearly the same average power as that available in CW mode with TECs. Multiwatt average powers are obtained even in ambient T>70°C, with true efficiency of electrical power-to-optical power conversion being above 10%. Because of the availability of QCLs with multiwatt power outputs and wavelength range covering a spectral region from ~3.5 μm to >16 μm, the QCLs have found instantaneous acceptance for insertion into multitude of defense and homeland security applications, including laser sources for infrared

Sources of long wavelengths few-cycle high repetition rate pulses are becoming increasingly important for a plethora of applications, e.g., in high-field physics. Here, we report on the realization of a tunable optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier at 100 kHz repetition rate. At a central wavelength of 2 μm, the system delivered 33 fs pulses and a 6 W average power corresponding to 60 μJ pulse energy with gigawatt-level peak powers. Idler absorption and its crystal heating is experimentally investigated for a BBO. Strategies for further power scaling to several tens of watts of average power are discussed.

介绍了现有技术条件下脉冲电容器的各种性能参数及其测试方法,包括储能密度、寿命、保压性能、绝缘电阻等；同时介绍了元件的主要分析测试手段,如大电测试、保压测试等,并研究了后处理工艺、介质系统优化和绝缘系统优化对电容器性能的影响.在此基础上,面向不同应用条件如大电流放电、长寿命、真空环境等,对高储能密度脉冲电容器进行研究,并给出相应的性能参数、限制条件和发展前景.研究结果表明:50kV/20 μF的电容器,可实现120 kA/80 μs的大电流输出,并通过-50～60℃的高低温考核；基于绝缘系统优化的浸渍型脉冲电容器,充放电寿命为干式结构的2～3倍,储能密度为2.0 kJ/L时,寿命大于1 000次,储能密度为1.3 kJ/L时,寿命大于10 000次；1.4 kJ/L高储能密度电容器,可以工作在气压小于10-3 Pa的真空条件下,输出电流达100 kA.%This paper studies the main performance parameters and measurements of metallized polypropylene film capacitors, such as energy density, voltage maintaining performance and insulation resistance. Through-current and insulation resistance tests are carried out for metallized film capacitor windings, and parameter optimization of the windings is discussed. According to the requirement of high current, long lifetime and vacuum applications, a 50 kV/20 μF metallized film capacitor with 120kA/80fis discharge current is developed, which can work at -50 to 60 'C. After impregnation techniques optimization, the lifetime of the capacitor can be increased up to 2 to 3 times that of the dry metallized film capacitor. An impregnated metallized film capacitor with energy storage density of 2. 0 kJ/L is designed and tested with a lifetime over 1 000 shots. It can achieve a lifetime of over 10 000 shots with energy storage density of 1. 3 kJ/L. Another capacitor with 1. 4 kJ/L energy storage density is designed and tested with discharge current

. In this paper, effects of applied voltage polarity on plasma discharge have been investigated in different mediums at atmospheric pressure. The experiments have been conducted based on high voltage DC power supply and high voltage pulse generator for point-to-point and point-to-plane geometries. Furthermore......, the influence of electric field distribution is analyzed using Finite Element simulations for the employed geometries and mediums. The experimental and simulation results have verified the important role of the applied voltage polarity, employed geometry and medium of the system on plasma generation....... condition plays an important role in maintaining the desired performance. Investigating the system parameters contributed to the generated pulses is an effective way in improving the system performance further ahead. One of these parameters is discharge polarity which has received less attention...

This book studies switch-mode power supplies (SMPS) in great detail. This type of converter changes an unregulated DC voltage into a high-frequency pulse-width modulated (PWM) voltage controlled by varying the duty cycle, then changes the PWM AC voltage to a regulated DC voltage at a high efficiency by rectification and filtering. Used to supply electronic circuits, this converter saves energy and space in the overall system. With concept-orientated explanations, this book offers state-of-the-art SMPS technology and promotes an understanding of the principle operations of PWM converters,

Two prototypes of pulsedpower generators for a two-sectional LIA - specialized driver of a relativistic magnetron were constructed and tested. The driver for the double-sided powering of a relativistic magnetron consists of two identical sets of induction modules (two sections of LIA) with inner electrodes - vacuum adders connected to both sides of a coaxial magnetron. It provides the symmetric power flowing in a magnetron and a possibility of localising of the electron flow in magnetron interaction region. The first generator designed for a small-scale laboratory installation provides the output pulses of 100 ns in duration with voltage amplitude of 50 kV at repetition rate of 1 pps. The construction of the generator is based on the application of experimental capacitor banks designed as a pulse forming line with the next parameters: charging voltage - 80 kV, impedance - 1,7 Ohm, pulse duration - 80 ns at a matched load. The second generator was designed for 1 MV integrated LIA - magnetron system. It cons...

Full Text Available Treatment and diagnosis can be made in difficult areas simply by changing the output pulse form of the magnetic stimulation device. However, there is a limitation in the range of treatments and diagnoses of a conventional sinusoidal stimulation treatment pulse because the intensity, width, and form of the pulse must be changed according to the lesion type. This paper reports a multidischarge method, where the stimulation coils were driven in sequence via multiple switching control. The limitation of the existing simple sinusoidal pulse form could be overcome by changing the intensity, width, and form of the pulse. In this study, a new sequential discharge method was proposed to freely alter the pulse width. The output characteristics of the stimulation treatment pulse were examined according to the trigger signal delay applied to the switch at each stage by applying a range of superposition pulses to the magnetic simulation device, which is widely used in industry and medicine.

PulsedPower Hydrodynamics, as an application of low-impedance, pulsedpower, and high magnetic field technology developed over the last decade to study advanced hydrodynamic problems, instabilities, turbulence, and material properties, can potentially be applied to the study of the behavior and properties of warm dense matter (WDM) as well. Exploration of the properties, such as equation of state and conductivity, of warm dense matter is an emerging area of study focused on the behavior of matter at density near solid density (from 10% of solid density to a few times solid density) and modest temperatures ({approx}1-10 eV). Warm dense matter conditions can be achieved by laser or particle beam heating of very small quantities of matter on timescales short compared to the subsequent hydrodynamic expansion timescales (isochoric heating) and a vigorous community of researchers is applying these techniques using petawatt scale laser systems, but the microscopic size scale of the WDM produced in this way limits access to some physics phenomena. Pulsedpower hydrodynamics techniques, either through high convergence liner compression of a large volume, modest density, low temperature plasma to densities approaching solid density or through the explosion and subsequent expansion of a conductor (wire) against a high pressure (density) gas background (isobaric expansion) techniques both offer the prospect for producing warm dense matter in macroscopic quantities. However, both techniques demand substantial energy, proper power conditioning and delivery, and an understanding of the hydrodynamic and instability processes that limit each technique. Similarly, liner compression of normal density material, perhaps using multiple reflected shocks can provide access to the challenging region above normal density -- again with the requirement of very large amounts of driving energy. In this paper we will provide an introduction to techniques that might be applied to explore this

In this Ph.D. thesis, the issues related to the metrological characterization of high-performance pulsedpower converters are addressed. Initially, a background and a state of the art on the measurement systems needed to correctly operate a high-performance power converter are presented. As a matter of fact, power converters usually exploits digital control loops to enhance their performance. In this context the final performance of a power converter has to be validated by a reference instrument with higher metrological characteristics. In addition, an on-line measurement systemis also needed to digitize the quantity to be controlled with high accuracy. Then, in industrial applications of power converters metrology, specifications are given in terms of Worst-Case Uncertainty (WCU). Therefore, an analytical model for predicting the Worst-Case Uncertainty (WCU) of a measurement system is discussed and detailed for an instrument affected by Gaussian noise. Furthermore, the study and the design of a Reference Acq...

In the concept of the dynamic hohlraum an imploding z-pinch is optically thick to its own radiation. Radiation may be trapped inside the pinch to give a radiation temperature inside the pinch greater than that outside the pinch. The radiation is typically produced by colliding an outer z-pinch liner onto an inner liner. The collision generates a strongly radiating shock, and the radiation is trapped by the outer liner. As the implosion continues after the collision the radiation temperature may continue to increase due to ongoing PdV work done by the implosion. In principal the radiation temperature may increase to the point at which the outer liner burns through, becomes optically thin, and no longer traps the radiation. One application of the dynamic hohlraum is to drive an ICF pellet with the trapped radiation field. Members of the dynamic hohlraum team at Sandia National Labs have used the pulsedpower driver Z (20 MA, 100 ns) to create a dynamic hohlraum with temperature linearly ramping from 100 to 180 eV over 5 ns. On this shot zp214 we imploded a nested tungsten wire array of 4 and 2 cm diameters with masses of 2 and 1 mg onto a 2.5 mg plastic annulus at 5 mm diameter. The current return can on this shot was slotted. We anticipate that the radiation temperature may be increased to over 200 eV by stabilizing the pinch with a solid current return can. A current return can with 9 slots imprints 9 filaments onto the imploding pinch. This degrades the optical trapping and the quality of the liner collision. A 1.6 mm diameter capsule situated inside this dynamic hohlraum of zp214 would see 50 kJ of radiation impinging on its surface before the pinch itself collapses to a 1.6 mm diameter. Dynamic hohlraum shots including pellets are scheduled to take place on Z in September of 1998. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company, for the US-DOE under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

For many years, klystrons have been the preferred RF power amplifiers for both pulsed and CW linacs at UHF and higher frequencies. Their properties have earned them that position. But in recent years in UHF terrestrial television transmitters the earlier predominant klystron has been replaced the Inductive Output Tube (IOT) because the IOT provides higher efficiency and, due to its excellent linearity, can handle the simultaneous amplification of both the vision and the sound signal. Its robustness and life expectancy equals that of a klystron, and it more than compensates its lower gain by a lower price and a smaller size. For linac operation, derivates of UHF TV IOTs, capable of up to 80 kW CW output power, are already available and operating. In L-Band, they are presently joined by recently developed 15 to 30 kW CW IOTs. HOM-IOTs are expected to extend the CW range in UHF to 1 MW and beyond. Pulsed operation of an IOT can be achieved without a high-voltage modulator. Since the beam current is grid-controll...

A simple pulse shape randomization scheme is considered in this paper for improving the performance of ultra wide band (UWB) communication systems using On Off Keying (OOK) or pulse position modulation (PPM) formats. The advantage of the proposed scheme, which can be either employed for impulse radio (IR) or for carrier-based systems, is first theoretically studied based on closed-form derivations of power spectral densities. Then, we investigate an application to an IR-UWB over optical fiber system, by utilizing the 4th and 5th orders of Gaussian derivatives. Our approach proves to be effective for 1 Gbps-PPM and 2 Gbps-OOK transmissions, with an advantage in terms of power efficiency for short distances. We also examine the performance for a system employing an in-line Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) with the view to achieve a reach extension, while limiting the cost and system complexity.

High-energy and short-duration laser pulses are desirable to improve the photoacoustic image quality when imaging deeply seated lesions. In many clinical applications, the high-energy pulses are coupled to tissue using optical fibers. These pulses can damage fibers if the damage threshold is exceeded. While keeping the total energy under the Food and Drug Administration limit for avoiding tissue damage, it is necessary to reduce the peak intensity and increase the pulse duration for minimizing fiber damage and delivering sufficient light for imaging. We use laser-pulse-stretching to address this problem. An initial 17-ns pulse was stretched to 27 and 37 ns by a ring-cavity laser-pulse-stretching system. The peak power of the 37-ns stretched pulse reduced to 42% of the original, while the fiber damage threshold was increased by 1.5-fold. Three ultrasound transducers centered at 1.3-, 3.5-, and 6-MHz frequencies were simulated, and the results showed that the photoacoustic signal of a 0.5-mm-diameter target obtained with 37-ns pulse was about 98, 91, and 80%, respectively, using the same energy as the 17-ns pulse. Simulations were validated using a broadband hydrophone. Quantitative comparisons of photoacoustic images obtained with three corresponding transducers showed that the image quality was not affected by stretching the pulse.

We report on a pulsed fiber based master oscillator power amplifier laser at 1550 nm to support moderate data rates with high peak powers in a compact package suitable for interplanetary optical communications. To accommodate pulse position modulation, the polarization maintaining laser transmitter generates pulses from 0.1 to 1 ns with variable duty cycle over a pulse repetition frequency range of 10 to 100 MHz.

We demonstrate the generation of 48 fs pulses with 18 W average power and 226 nJ of pulse energy from a Yb-doped fiber amplifier. The system uses a simple stretcher-free single-stage amplifier configuration operating in the parabolic pulse regime. The gain fiber length and pump wavelength are chosen in order to reduce the gain per unit length and generate both shorter pulses and higher pulse energy.

The results of characterization experiments carried out on a newly developed dense plasma focus device based intense pulsed neutron source with efficient and compact pulsedpower system are reported. Its high current sealed pseudospark switch based low inductance capacitor bank with maximum stored energy of ˜10 kJ is segregated into four modules of ˜2.5 kJ each and it cumulatively delivers peak current in the range of 400 kA-600 kA (corresponding to charging voltage range of 14 kV-18 kV) in a quarter time period of ˜2 μs. The neutron yield performance of this device has been optimized by discretely varying deuterium filling gas pressure in the range of 6 mbar-11 mbar at ˜17 kV/550 kA discharge. At ˜7 kJ/8.5 mbar operation, the average neutron yield has been measured to be in the order of ˜4 × 109 neutrons/pulse which is the highest ever reported neutron yield from a plasma focus device with the same stored energy. The average forward to radial anisotropy in neutron yield is found to be ˜2. The entire system is contained on a moveable trolley having dimensions 1.5 m × 1 m × 0.7 m and its operation and control (up to the distance of 25 m) are facilitated through optically isolated handheld remote console. The overall compactness of this system provides minimum proximity to small as well as large samples for irradiation. The major intended application objective of this high neutron yield dense plasma focus device development is to explore the feasibility of active neutron interrogation experiments by utilization of intense pulsed neutron sources.

In the last decade the increasing availability of Tera- and Petawatt class lasers with ps to fs pulse duration has intensified the interest in the relativistic interaction between laser radiation and matter. Today laser intensities up to 1022 W/cm2 can be achieved. Most high intensity lasers today rely on amplification schemes that can only hardly be scaled to higher power levels due to material damage thresholds. An alternative approach that allows circumventing these issues is the use of plasma as an amplification medium. Langmuir or ion waves may be used as optical components, scattering the energy from a long pump pulse into a short seed pulse. Damage thresholds of solid-state materials are not only limiting the generation of high power laser light, but also its subsequent manipulation. Again, plasma can provide an alternative approach to light manipulation. We recently proposed the concept of transient plasma photonic crystals, which aims at transferring and extending the concept of photonic crystals to the realm of plasma physics in the range of optical frequencies. In my presentation I will discuss Brillouin type plasma-based laser amplifiers and show that the ion plasma waves, driven by the two laser pulses, eventually form photonic crystals. The properties and possible future applications of these plasma photonic crystals as efficient Bragg type mirrors or polarizers will be discussed.

Intense nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEFs) have been shown to induce, on intracellular structures, interesting effects dependent on electrical exposure conditions (pulse length and amplitude, repetition frequency and number of pulses), which are known in the literature as "bioelectrical effects" (Schoenbach et al., IEEE Trans Plasma Sci 30:293-300, 2002). In particular, pulses with a shorter width than the plasma membrane charging time constant (about 100 ns for mammalian cells) can penetrate the cell and trigger effects such as permeabilization of intracellular membranes, release of Ca(2+) and apoptosis induction. Moreover, the observed effects have led to exploration of medical applications, like the treatment of melanoma tumors (Nuccitelli et al., Biochem Biophys Res Commun 343:351-360, 2006). Pulsed electric fields allowing such effects usually range from several tens to a few hundred nanoseconds in duration and from a few to several tens of megavolts per meter in amplitude (Schoenbach et al., IEEE Trans Diel Elec Insul 14:1088-1109, 2007); however, the biological effects of subnanosecond pulses have been also investigated (Schoenbach et al., IEEE Trans Plasma Sci 36:414-422, 2008). The use of such a large variety of pulse parameters suggests that highly flexible pulse-generating systems, able to deliver wide ranges of pulse durations and amplitudes, are strongly required in order to explore effects and applications related to different exposure conditions. The Blumlein pulse-forming network is an often-employed circuit topology for the generation of high-voltage electric pulses with fixed pulse duration. An innovative modification to the Blumlein circuit has been recently devised which allows generation of pulses with variable amplitude, duration and polarity. Two different modified Blumlein pulse-generating systems are presented in this article, the first based on a coaxial cable configuration, matching microscopic slides as a pulse-delivery system

Microstructure, hardness, material distribution and current efficiency were studied for various pulse patterns (both direct current, on/off and pulse reverse plating) and different bath compositions of copper sulfate and sulfuric acid, with additions of chloride. The objective was to develop a re...... a reliable copper electroforming process to provide a fine-grained and hard (above HV 125) deposit with good micro- and macrothrowing power. Potential applications include solar cell panels, tools for micro injection molding and various microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)....

Microstructure, hardness, material distribution and current efficiency were studied for various pulse patterns (both direct current, on/off and pulse reverse plating) and different bath compositions of copper sulfate and sulfuric acid, with additions of chloride. The objective was to develop a re...... a reliable copper electroforming process to provide a fine-grained and hard (above HV 125) deposit with good micro- and macrothrowing power. Potential applications include solar cell panels, tools for micro injection molding and various microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)....

Abstract In this thesis, a new type of laser diode transmitter using enhanced gain-switching suitable for use with a single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) detector was developed and tested in the pulsed time-of-flight laser range finding (lidar) application. Several laser diode versions were tested and the driving electronics were developed. The driving electronics improvements enabled a pulsing frequency of up to 1 MHz, while the maximum laser output power was about 5–40 W depending on...

Laser drivers are an enabling factor to inertial confinement fusion, because laser diodes must be used instead of flash lamps. We discuss the limitations of laser diode arrays and show what steps the industry is taking. The pump power requirements of large-scale projects such as LIFE or Hi PER are within reach of semiconductor laser diode assemblies.Pulsed light output powers per laser bars have been around 300 W per bar, as in the Jenoptik 940 nm bars previously used for pumping the Yb:YAG slabs in the Di POLE project. By redesigning the semiconductor laser structures 500 W per bar is now commercially available for 808, 880 and 940 nm pump wavelengths. The construction of one inertial fusion power plant will require an amount of semiconductor laser chips in excess of the current annual production by two orders of magnitude. This adds to the engineering task of improving the device characteristics a challenge to production capacity.While the industry benefits from the recent boost in solid-state lighting that acts as a technology driver, cooperation between manufacturers will be imperative, and to this end we propose standardization efforts.

A single nuclear detonation several hundred kilometers above the central United States will subject much of the nation to a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (BENT). This pulse consists of an intense steep-front, short-duration transient electromagnetic field, followed by a geomagnetic disturbance with tens of seconds duration. This latter environment is referred to as the magnetohydrodynamic electromagnetic pulse (NMENT). Both the early-time transient and the geomagnetic disturbance could impact the operation of the nation`s power systems. Since 1983, the US Department of Energy has been actively pursuing a research program to assess the potential impacts of one or more BENT events on the nation`s electric energy supply. This report summarizes the results of that program and provides recommendations for enhancing power system reliability under HENT conditions. A nominal HENP environment suitable for assessing geographically large systems was developed during the program and is briefly described in this report. This environment was used to provide a realistic indication of BEMP impacts on electric power systems. It was found that a single high-altitude burst, which could significantly disturb the geomagnetic field, may cause the interconnected power network to break up into utility islands with massive power failures in some areas. However, permanent damage would be isolated, and restoration should be possible within a few hours. Multiple bursts would likely increase the blackout areas, component failures, and restoration time. However, a long-term blackout of many months is unlikely because major power system components, such as transformers, are not likely to be damaged by the nominal HEND environment. Moreover, power system reliability, under both HENT and normal operating conditions, can be enhanced by simple, and often low cost, modifications to current utility practices.

The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) study is exploring the scheme for an electron-positron collider with high luminosity (10-34 – 10-35 cm-2s-1) and a nominal centre-of-mass energy of 3 TeV: CLIC would complement LHC physics in the multi-TeV range. The CLIC design relies on Pre-Damping Rings (PDR) and Damping Rings (DR) to achieve the very low emittance, through synchrotron radiation, needed for the luminosity requirements of CLIC. To limit the beam emittance blow-up due to oscillations, the pulsepower modulators for the DR kickers must provide extremely flat, high-voltage pulses: the 2 GHz specification called for a 160 ns duration flat-top of 12.5 kV, 250 A, with a combined ripple and droop of not more than ±0.02 %. In order to meet these demanding specifications, a combination of broadband impedance matching, optimized electrical circuit layout and advanced control techniques is required. A solid-state modulator, the inductive adder, is the most promising approach to meeting the demanding specifications...

The PHELIX pulsed-power driver is a 300 kJ, portable, transformer-coupled, capacitor bank capable of delivering 3-5 MA, 10 μs pulse into a low inductance load. Here we describe further testing and hydrodynamics experiments. First, a 4 nH static inductive load has been constructed. This allows for repetitive high-voltage, high-current testing of the system. Results are used in the calibration of simple circuit models and numerical simulations across a range of bank charges (+/-20 < V0 < +/-40 kV). Furthermore, a dynamic liner-on-target load experiment has been conducted to explore the shock-launched transport of particulates (diam. ~ 1 μm) from a surface. The trajectories of the particulates are diagnosed with radiography. Results are compared to 2D hydro-code simulations. Finally, initial studies are underway to assess the feasibility of using the PHELIX driver as an electromagnetic launcher for planer shock-physics experiments. Work supported by United States-DOE under contract DE-AC52-06NA25396.

The Heavy Ion Fusion Science Virtual National Laboratory (HIFS-VNL) is currently finalizing the design of NDCX-II, the second phase of the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment, which will use an ion beam to explore Warm Dense Matter (WDM) and Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) target hydrodynamics. The ion induction accelerator will include induction cells and Blumleins from the decommissioned Advanced Test Accelerator (ATA) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). A test stand has been built at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to test refurbished ATA induction cells and pulsedpower hardware for voltage holding and ability to produce various compression and acceleration waveforms. The performance requirements, design modifications, and test results will be presented.

Fiber-optic transmission and recording systems, based on Mach-Zehnder modulators, have been developed and installed at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), and are being developed for other pulsed-power facilities such as the Z accelerator at Sandia, with different requirements. We present the design and performance characteristics for the mature analog links, based on the system developed for the Gamma Reaction History diagnostic at the OMEGA laser and at NIF. For a single detector channel, two Mach-Zehnders are used to provide high dynamic range at the full recording bandwidth with no gaps in the coverage. We present laboratory and shot data to estimate upper limits on the radiation effects as they impact recorded data quality. Finally, we will assess the technology readiness level for mature and developing implementations of Mach-Zehnder links for these environments.

Fiber-optic transmission and recording systems, based on Mach-Zehnder modulators, have been developed and installed at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), and are being developed for other pulsed-power facilities such as the Z accelerator at Sandia, with different requirements. We present the design and performance characteristics for the mature analog links, based on the system developed for the Gamma Reaction History diagnostic at the OMEGA laser and at NIF. For a single detector channel, two Mach-Zehnders are used to provide high dynamic range at the full recording bandwidth with no gaps in the coverage. We present laboratory and shot data to estimate upper limits on the radiation effects as they impact recorded data quality. Finally, we will assess the technology readiness level for mature and developing implementations of Mach-Zehnder links for these environments.

Fiber-optic transmission and recording systems, based on Mach-Zehnder modulators, have been developed and installed at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), and are being developed for other pulsed-power facilities such as Z-R at Sandia, with different requirements. We present the design and performance characteristics for the mature analog links, based on the system developed for the Gamma Reaction History (GRH) diagnostic at OMEGA and NIF. For a single detector channel, two Mach-Zehnders are used to provide high dynamic range at the full recording bandwidth with no gaps in the coverage. We present laboratory and shot data to estimate upper limits on the radiation effects as they impact recorded data quality. Finally, we will assess the technology readiness level for mature and developing implementations of Mach-Zehnder links for these environments.

This annual report summarizes the activities of the Cornell Center for Pulsed-Power-Driven High-Energy-Density Plasma Studies, for the 12-month period October 1, 2005-September 30, 2006. This period corresponds to the first year of the two-year extension (awarded in October, 2005) to the original 3-year NNSA/DOE Cooperative Agreement with Cornell, DE-FC03-02NA00057. As such, the period covered in this report also corresponds to the fourth year of the (now) 5-year term of the Cooperative Agreement. The participants, in addition to Cornell University, include Imperial College, London (IC), the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), the University of Rochester (UR), the Weizmann Institute of Science (WSI), and the P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute (LPI), Moscow. A listing of all faculty, technical staff and students, both graduate and undergraduate, who participated in Center research activities during the year in question is given in Appendix A.

Full Text Available of using low seed laser powers for amplification of shaped pulses in a typical setup for coherent control experiments. An acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter (Dazzler from FastLite) is used to shape 130 fs pulses before amplification... measured as such) for low and high seed powers. Clearly, at lower seed powers as in (a), the measured trace corresponds to approximately the 4:1 ratio expected, but at high seed powers this ratio changes towards 2:1, indicating the smaller of the two...

Two different pulse cleaning techniques for ultra-high contrast laser systems are comparably analysed in this work.The first pulse cleaning technique is based on noncollinear femtosecond optical-parametric amplification(NOPA)and second-harmonic generation(SHG)processes.The other is based on cross-polarized wave(XPW)generation.With a double chirped pulse amplifier(double-CPA)scheme,although temporal contrast enhancement in a high-intensity femtosecond Ti:sapphire chirped pulse amplification(CPA)laser system can be achieved based on both of the techniques,the two different pulse cleaning techniques still have their own advantages and are suitable for different contrast enhancement requirements of different laser systems.

We demonstrate a master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) burst mode laser system that generates 66 ps/402.5 MHz pulses with mega-watt peak power at 355 nm. The seed laser consists of a single frequency fiber laser (linewidth picosecond pulse generator, and a fiber based preamplifier. A very high extinction ratio (45 dB) has been achieved by using an adaptive bias control of the EOM. The multi-stage Nd:YAG amplifier system allows a uniformly temporal shaping of the macropulse with a tunable pulse duration. The light output from the amplifier is converted to 355 nm, and over 1 MW peak power is obtained when the laser is operating in a 5-μs/10-Hz macropulse mode. The laser output has a transform-limited spectrum with a very narrow linewidth of individual longitudinal modes. The immediate application of the laser system is the laser-assisted hydrogen ion beam stripping for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS).

High energy capacitor bank is used for primary electrical energy storage in pulsedpower drivers. The capacitors used in these pulsedpower drivers have low inductance, low internal resistance, and less dc life, so it has to be charged rapidly and immediately discharged into the load. A series resonant converter based 45 kV compact power supply is designed and developed for rapid charging of the capacitor bank with constant charging current up to 150 mA. It is short circuit proof, and zero current switching technique is used to commute the semiconductor switch. A high frequency resonant inverter switching at 10 kHz makes the overall size small and reduces the switching losses. The output current of the power supply is limited by constant on-time and variable frequency switching control technique. The power supply is tested by charging the 45 kV/1.67 μF and 15 kV/356 μF capacitor banks. It has charged the capacitor bank up to rated voltage with maximum charging current of 150 mA and the average charging rate of 3.4 kJ/s. The output current of the power supply is limited by reducing the switching frequency at 5 kHz, 3.3 kHz, and 1.7 kHz and tested with 45 kV/1.67 μF capacitor bank. The protection circuit is included in the power supply for over current, under voltage, and over temperature. The design details and the experimental testing results of the power supply for resonant current, output current, and voltage traces of the power supply with capacitive, resistive, and short circuited load are presented and discussed.

Full Text Available There are a lot of ways to achieve large current pulsepower supply, and the more common way is to adopt the inverter switching circuit to achieve pulsepower supply. The core of the NC power supply design of large current and wide frequency pulse in SEAM is using two-stage modulation. Combined with inverter technology, DC chopper technology and NC technology, it not only can achieve the adjustability of the output pulse amplitude, but also can realize continuous adjustment of the output pulses and the duty cycle. The front stage of power supply uses DC/DC transformation circuit with the UC3879 integrated control chip as the core. With the microcontroller as the control core, the backward stage uses DC chopper circuit to achieve the NC power supply of multi-parameter adjustable output large current pulse.

Generation of high power double-scale pulses from a gain-guided double-clad fiber laser is experimentally demonstrated. By employing the Yb-doped 10/130 double-clad fiber as the gain medium, the laser realizes an output power of 5.1 W and pulse energy of 0.175 µJ at repetition rate of 29.14 MHz. To the best of our knowledge, this average output power is the highest among the reported double-scale pulse oscillators. The autocorrelation trace of pulses contains the short (98 fs) and long (29.5 ps) components, and the spectral bandwidth of the pulse is 27.3 nm. Such double-scale pulses are well suited for seeding the high power MOPA (master oscillator power amplifier) systems, nonlinear frequency conversion and optical coherence tomography.

By solving a set of time-dependent equations, the characteristics of the ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber amplifier are presented. Besides the steady state in the fiber of the upper-state population, pump power and amplified spontaneous emission without the input signal, the dynamic characteristics of the high power Gaussian pulse amplification like the evolution of pulse waveform distortion, upper-state population distribution and stored energy and pulse energy of the amplifier under the forward and backward pump,are simulated. The relations between the output pulse energy of the amplifier and the different input pulse peak power or pump power are also discussed. The models and results can provide important guide for the design and optimization of the high powerpulse amplification.

Major advances in pulsedpower technology and applications over the last twenty years have expanded the mission areas for pulsedpower and created compelling new opportunities for the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP). This summary document is a forward look at the development of pulsedpower science and technology (PPS&T) capabilities in support of the next 20 years of the SSP. This outlook was developed during a three-month-long tri-lab study on the future of PPS&T research and capabilities in support of applications to: (1) Dynamic Materials, (2) Thermonuclear Burn Physics and Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), and (3) Radiation Effects and Nuclear Survivability. It also considers necessary associated developments in next-generation codes and pulsedpower technology as well as opportunities for academic, industry, and international engagement. The document identifies both imperatives and opportunities to address future SSP mission needs. This study was commissioned by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). A copy of the memo request is contained in the Appendix. NNSA guidance received during this study explicitly directed that it not be constrained by resource limitations and not attempt to prioritize its findings against plans and priorities in other areas of the national weapons program. That prioritization, including the relative balance amongst the three focus areas themselves, must of course occur before any action is taken on the observations presented herein. This unclassified summary document presents the principal imperatives and opportunities identified in each mission and supporting area during this study. Preceding this area-specific outlook, we discuss a cross-cutting opportunity to increase the shot capacity on the Z pulsedpower facility as a near-term, cost-effective way to broadly impact PPS&T for SSP as well as advancing the science and technology to inform future SSMP milestones over the next 5-10 years. The final page of the

Major advances in pulsedpower technology and applications over the last twenty years have expanded the mission areas for pulsedpower and created compelling new opportunities for the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP). This summary document is a forward look at the development of pulsedpower science and technology (PPS&T) capabilities in support of the next 20 years of the SSP. This outlook was developed during a three month long tri-lab study on the future of PPS&T research and capabilities in support of applications to: (1) Dynamic Materials, (2) Thermonuclear Burn Physics and Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), and (3) Radiation Effects and Nuclear Survivability. It also considers necessary associated developments in next-generation codes and pulsedpower technology as well as opportunities for academic, industry, and international engagement. The document identifies both imperatives and opportunities to address future SSP mission needs. This study was commissioned by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). A copy of the memo request is contained in the Appendix. NNSA guidance received during this study explicitly directed that it not be constrained by resource limitations and not attempt to prioritize its findings against plans and priorities in other areas of the national weapons program. That prioritization, including the relative balance amongst the three focus areas themselves, must of course occur before any action is taken on the observations presented herein. This unclassified summary document presents the principal imperatives and opportunities identified in each mission and supporting area during this study. Proceeding this area-specific outlook, we discuss a cross-cutting opportunity to increase the shot capacity on the Z pulsedpower facility as a near term, cost effective way to broadly impact PPS&T for SSP as well as advancing the science and technology to inform future SSMP milestones over the next 5-10 years. The final page of the

A hybrid magnetic approach, merging two different magnetic core properites such as ferrite and iron powder cores, is an effective solution for power converter applications. It can offer similar magnetic properties to that of magnetic powder cores but showing less copper loss than powder cores...

Full Text Available An analysis of circuit designs as to connecting a magnetic pulse action tool to a power source has been carried out. Design features of a magnetic pulse installation control and monitoring system in a multiple current pulse mode have been revealed. The description of the control and monitoring system block diagrams has been presented.

A pulsedpower supply consisting of a fast discharge battery, a switch based on silicon-controlled-rectifier SCR technology, and an energy storage/pulse transformer is discussed. Preliminary results indicate that the battery is capable of discharging current pulses with reproducible peak values of 6

Design and application of pulse information acquisition and analysis system with dynamic ... Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads. ... Methods: To use some flexible sensors to catch the radial artery pressure pulse wave and utilize ... and dynamic recognition, and it was applied to serve for ten healthy adults.

We report a novel quasi-synchronously pumped PPMgLN-based high power mid-infrared (MIR) laser with picosecond pulse bunch output. The pump laser is a linearly polarized MOPA structured all fiberized Yb fiber laser with picosecond pulse bunch output. The output from a mode-locked seed fiber laser was directed to pass through a FBG reflector via a circulator to narrow the pulse duration from 800 ps to less than 50 ps and the spectral FWHM from 9 nm to 0.15 nm. The narrowed pulses were further directed to pass through a novel pulse multiplier through which each pulse was made to become a pulse bunch composing of 13 sub-pulses with pulse to pulse time interval of 1.26 ns. The pulses were then amplified via two stage Yb fiber amplifiers to obtain a linearly polarized high average power output up to 85 W, which were then directed to pass through an isolator and to pump a PPMgLN-based optical parametric oscillator via quasi-synchronization pump scheme for ps pulse bunch MIR output. High MIR output with average power up to 4 W was obtained at 3.45 micron showing the feasibility of such pump scheme for ps pulse bunch MIR output.

recovery of high pressure SF6 circuit breakers by Perkins and Frost* at the Westinghouse Research laboratories. The apparatus is shown schematically... breaker with opposite polarity and will increase the potential across the circuit breaker . The necessary data are not on hand to determine the...A.N., Lee, T.H., Theory and Application of the Commutation Principle for HVDC Circuit Brakers, Transactions Paper IEEE Power Engineering Society, 1972

The use of lasers for material processing continues to expand, and the annual sales of such lasers exceeds $1 B (US). Large scale (many m2) processing of materials require the economical production of laser powers of the tens of kilowatts, and therefore are not yet commercial processes, although they have been demonstrated. The development of FELs based on superconducting RF (SRF) linac technology provides a scaleable path to laser outputs above 50 kW in the IR, rendering these applications economically viable, since the cost/photon drops as the output power increases. This approach also enables high average power ~ 1 kW output in the UV spectrum. Such FELs will provide quasi-cw (PRFs in the tens of MHz), of ultrafast (pulsewidth ~ 1 ps) output with very high beam quality. This talk will provide an overview of applications tests by our facility's users such as pulsed laser deposition, laser ablation, and laser surface modification, as well as present plans that will be tested with our upgraded FELs. These upg...

Many important advances in modern technology will require input powers which are too high to deliver continuously. Fortunately, constant operation is not necessary for some applications. In those cases, electrical input power can be delivered in pulses with specifically tailored characteristics. The most demanding applications create the need for particular combinations of operating parameters that are important in high-energy lasers, advanced accelerators and the generation of high-power microwaves; and those lie at the focus of this work. Conventional devices had been able to provide some of the parameters in the same arrangement, but none could deliver all of them at once. In 1993, when this work was initiated, the concept of a high-voltage solid state switch capable of being triggered on demand held promise for a solution, despite traditional obstacles. Initially, all common solid-state materials, including GaAs and Si, had been designed for low-powerapplications, and attempts to extend their performance to higher powers created some problems. For high-voltage operation, these switches required some sort of isolation from the command circuit. Optical triggering solved these problems in a device known as a photoconductive switch. However, for some modern applications, which require pulses with very fast risetimes, conventional photoconductive switch technology was limited by the time required to produce enough charge carriers for commutation. Carrier generation could be accomplished in one of two ways. The first involved the use of an intense laser pulse with a fast risetime to produce all carriers through photon absorption. In this case, the necessary laser had to be large and expensive, and required its own high-power pulser, similar to the one being built, making this approach impractical. The second method involved the initiation of a fast, non- linear, avalanche process within the semiconductor, using a more conventional light pulse. This technique

Thulium-doped fibers with ultra large mode-field areas offer new opportunities for the power scaling of mid-IR ultrashort-pulse laser sources. Here, we present a laser system delivering a pulse-peak power of 2 GW and a nearly transform-limited pulse duration of 200 fs in combination with 28.7 W of average power. This performance level has been achieved by optimizing the pulse shape, reducing the overlap with atmospheric absorption lines, and incorporating a climate chamber to reduce the humidity of the atmospheric environment.

A high efficiency and high peak power laser system with short-pulse and good beam quality has been demonstrated by using a master oscillator power amplifier with two-pass amplification configuration. The master oscillator, end-pumped with a fiber-coupled laser diode array, provides low power but excellent beam quality pulses, and the amplifier boosts the pulse energy by orders without significant beam quality degradation. Short pulses of 8.5 ns with energy up to 130 mJ and approximately diffraction limited beam quality have been demonstrated.

A present challenge facing the fusion energy community and particularly the ICC community in its support of the main line tokamak program is the ability to generate increased power levels for pulsed magnets, arc plasma sources, radio frequency heating, and current drive schemes, at reasonable cost. Continuous wave (CW) tube based power supplies are typically large and expensive, making them prohibitive for smaller experimental facilities or not cost effective when only pulsed input power is required. Continued research and development of next generation solid state power supplies could allow for multiple applications with a single well developed, low cost module that could be configured in many ways. Eagle Harbor Technologies has developed, built, and tested a modular solid state power supply based on Insulate Gate Bi-polar Transistor (IGBT) technologies. The power supply utilized a modular, low cost, high power IGBT based system that can be assembled in multiple ways to address a wide range of applications. Testing results demonstrating the prototype abilities in both parallel and series configurations and for both high current and/or high voltage operation will be presented. The prototype cost was shown to be significantly lower than older generation power supplies for similar applications. Future work includes upgrading the prototype for increased power levels (> 10 MW).

International audience; UV excimer lamps are efﬁcient narrowband sources of UV radiation with applications in various domains. The issue of controlling the UV emission by means of the power supply associated with such lamps favors pulsed current-controlled generators. After having established the previous statements, we propose a dedicated power converter topology which implements the needed performances. The analysis of the degrees of freedom of this structure shows the capability of this pu...

We report on the recent design and fabrication of kagome-type hollow-core photonic crystal fibers for the purpose of high-power ultrashort pulse transportation. The fabricated seven-cell three-ring hypocycloid-shaped large core fiber exhibits an up-to-date lowest attenuation (among all kagome fibers) of 40 dB/km over a broadband transmission centered at 1500 nm. We show that the large core size, low attenuation, broadband transmission, single-mode guidance, and low dispersion make it an ideal host for high-power laser beam transportation. By filling the fiber with helium gas, a 74 μJ, 850 fs, and 40 kHz repetition rate ultrashort pulse at 1550 nm has been faithfully delivered at the fiber output with little propagation pulse distortion. Compression of a 105 μJ laser pulse from 850 fs down to 300 fs has been achieved by operating the fiber in ambient air.

We demonstrated robust and bend insensitive fiber delivery of high powerpulsed laser with diffraction limited beam quality for two different kind of hollow core photonic band gap fibers......We demonstrated robust and bend insensitive fiber delivery of high powerpulsed laser with diffraction limited beam quality for two different kind of hollow core photonic band gap fibers...

The study of infant vision is closely coupled to the study of the refraction, change in refraction over time, and the effect of spectacle correction on visual development. Frequently, reports are limited to descriptions of spherical equivalent or cylinder power without regard to axis, as data are frequently collected in the clinical format of sphere, cylinder, and axis (S, C, A). Conversion from clinical notation to a power vector representation of refraction allows unambiguous description of how refractions change over time and differ between repeated measurements. This article presents a series of examples of Microsoft Excel spreadsheet formulas that make the conversion from clinical notation to power vector format, and provides examples of useful applications of these methods.

Utilizing nanosecond high voltage pulses to drive microdischarges (MDs) at repetition rates in the vicinity of 1 MHz previously enabled increased time-averaged power deposition, peak vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) power yield, as well as time-averaged VUV power yield. Here, various pulse widths (30-250 ns), and pulse repetition rates (100 kHz-5 MHz) are utilized, and the resulting VUV yield is reported. It was observed that the use of a 50 ns pulse width, at a repetition rate of 100 kHz, provided 62 W peak VUV power and 310 mW time-averaged VUV power, with a time-averaged VUV generation efficiency of ˜1.1%. Optimization of the driving parameters resulted in 1-2 orders of magnitude increase in peak and time-averaged power when compared to low power, dc-driven MDs.

Summary form only given, as follows. The Atlas pulsedpower driver has recently been commissioned at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The paper provides an overview of the Atlas facility, its initial experimental program and plans for the future. The reader desiring more detailed information is referred to papers in this conference by Keinigs et al. on materials studies, Cochrane et al. on machine performance and Ballard et al. on fabrication and assembly. Atlas is a high current generator capable of driving 30 megamps through a low- inductance load. It has been designed to require minimal maintenance, provide excellent diagnostic access, and rapid turnaround. Its capacitor bank stores 23.5 megajoules in a four-stage Marx configuration which erects to 240 kV at maximum charge. It has a quarter-cycle time of 4.5 microseconds. It will typically drive cylindrical aluminum liners in a z-pinch configuration to velocities up to 10 mm/msec while maintaining the inner surface in the solid state. Diagnostic access incl...

Full Text Available The paper provides an innovative hydromechanical solution of the problem of profiles development of pits and channels by impact of pulse (blasting power load on a surface of homogeneous soil mass, for example, when excavating solid rocks, frozen soil, etc. Thus, soil would be considered as an ideal heavy liquid (disregarding its mechanical strength and plastic properties. The solution of this problem is achieved by the method of consecutive conformal mappings of physical flow region (in the form of Kirchhoff complex on the region of complex potential (in the form of a rectangle. Thus, the new technique of geometrical image generation of the latter in the presence in the flow region of a fixed point with discontinuous variations of pressure head-flow function and the direction of speed of flow and representation of an elliptic sine of Jacobi by means of elementary functions are used. The received analytical functional dependencies allow to determine an outline of a funnel of the soil ejection and all the required hydromechanical characteristics of flow (head-flow function, function of flow, speed of flow, etc.. Thus, the soil ejection funnel outline (for a benchmark problem completely coincides with subproduct of the known rigorous solution of Lavrentyev-Kuznetsov.

We describe the investigations of the plasma behavior in three pulsed-power systems: a magnetically insulated ion diode, and plasma opening switch, and a gas-puffed Z pinch. Recently developed spectroscopic diagnostic techniques allow for measurements with relatively high spectral, temporal, and spatial resolutions. The particle velocity and density distributions within a few tens of microns from the dielectric-anode surface are observed using laser spectroscopy. Fluctuating electric fields in the plasma are inferred from anisotropic Stark broadening. For the plasma opening switch experiment, a novel gaseous plasma source was developed which is mounted inside the high-voltage inner conductor. The properties of this source, together with spectroscopic observations of the electron density and particle velocities of the injected plasma, are described. Emission line intensities during the switch operation are discussed. In the Z-pinch experiment, spectral emission-line profiles of various charge-state ions are studied during the implosion phase. Radial velocity distributions are observed from the line Doppler shifts and widths.

An optically powered fireset has been developed for the Procyon high explosive pulsed-power generator at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The fireset was located inside this flux compression experiment where large magnetic fields are generated. No energy sources were allowed inside the experiment and no wire connections can penetrate through the wall, of the experiment because of the high magnetic fields. The flux compression was achieved with high explosives in the experiment. The fireset was used to remotely charge a 1.2 {micro}f capacitor to 6,500V and to provide a readout of the voltage on the capacitor at the control room. The capacitor was charged by using two 7W fiber coupled GaAlAs laser diodes to illuminate two fiber coupled 12V solar cells. The solar cell outputs were connected in parallel to the input of a DC-DC converter which step up a 12V to 6,500V. A voltmeter, powered by illuminating a third 12V solar cell with 1W laser diode, was used to monitor the charge on the capacitor. The voltage was measured with a divider circuit, then converted to frequency in a V-F converter and transmitted to the control room over a fiber optic link. A fiducial circuit measured the capacitor firing current and provided an optical output timing pulse.

An all solid-state pulsedpower generator for plasma immersion ion implantation (PⅢ) is described. The pulsedpower system is based on a Marx circuit configuration and semi-conductor switches, which have many advantages in adjustable repetition frequency, pulse width modulation and long serving life compared with the conventional circuit category, tube-based technologies such as gridded vacuum tubes, thyratrons, pulse forming networks and transformers.The operation of PⅢ with pulse repetition frequencies up to 500 Hz has been achieved at a pulse voltage amplitude from 2 kV to 60 kV, with an adjustable pulse duration from 1 μs to 100 μs.The proposed system and its performance, as used to drive a plasma ion implantation chamber,axe described in detail on the basis of the experimental results.

The inactivation of microorganisms by pulsed magnetic field was studied. It was improved that theapplication of electromagnetic pulses evidently causes a lethal effect on E. coli cells suspended in phosphate buffersolution Na2 HPO4 / NaH2 PO4 (0.334/0.867 mmol/L). Experimental results indicated that the survivability( N/N0; whereN0 and N are the number of cells survived per milliliter before and after electromagnetic pulsesapplication,respectively) of E. coli decreased with magnetic field intensity B and treatment time t. It was also found that themedium temperatures, the frequencies of pulse f, and the initial bacterial cell concentrations have determinateinfluences in destruction of E. coli cells by the application of magnetic pulses. The application of an magneticintensity B = 160 mT at pulses frequency f = 62 kHz and treatment time t = 16 h result in a considerable destructionlevels of E. coli cells ( N/N0 = 10-4 ). Possible mechanisms involved in sterilization of the magnetic field treatmentwere discussed. In order to shorten the treatment time, many groups of parallel inductive coil were used. Thepracticability test showed that the treatment time was shortened to 4 h with the application of three groups of parallelcoil when the survivability of E. coli cells was less than 0.01%; and the power consumption was about 0.2 kWh/m3 .

In [K. Kobzar, T.E. Skinner, N. Khaneja, S.J. Glaser, B. Luy, Exploring the limits of broadband excitation and inversion, J. Magn. Reson. 170 (2004) 236-243], optimal control theory was employed in a systematic study to establish physical limits for the minimum rf-amplitudes required in broadband excitation and inversion pulses. In a number of cases, however, experimental schemes are not limited by rf-amplitudes, but by the overall rf-power applied to a sample. We therefore conducted a second systematic study of excitation and inversion pulses of varying pulse durations with respect to bandwidth and rf-tolerances, but this time using a modified algorithm involving restricted rf-power. The resulting pulses display a variety of pulse shapes with highly modulated rf-amplitudes and generally show better performance than corresponding pulses with identical pulse length and rf-power, but limited rf-amplitude. A detailed description of pulse shapes and their performance is given for the so-called power-BEBOP and power-BIBOP pulses.

The disk laser with multi-kW output power in infrared cw operation is widely used in today's manufacturing, primarily in the automotive industry. The disk technology combines high power (average and/or peak power), excellent beam quality, high efficiency and high reliability with low investment and operating costs. Additionally, the disk laser is ideally suited for frequency conversion due to its polarized output with negligible depolarization losses. Laser light in the green spectral range (~515 nm) can be created with a nonlinear crystal. Pulsed disk lasers with green output of well above 50 W (extracavity doubling) in the ps regime and several hundreds of Watts in the ns regime with intracavity doubling are already commercially available whereas intracavity doubled disk lasers in continuous wave operation with greater than 250 W output are in test phase. In both operating modes (pulsed and cw) the frequency doubled disk laser offers advantages in existing and new applications. Copper welding for example is said to show much higher process reliability with green laser light due to its higher absorption in comparison to the infrared. This improvement has the potential to be very beneficial for the automotive industry's move to electrical vehicles which requires reliable high-volume welding of copper as a major task for electro motors, batteries, etc.

Recent analysis and experiments have demonstrated the potential for transmission line transformers to be employed as compact, high-frequency, high-power, pulsed oscillators with variable rise time, high output impedance, and high operating efficiency. A prototype system was fabricated and tested that generates a damped sinusoidal wave form at a center frequency of 4 MHz into a 200 Omega load, with operating efficiency above 90% and peak power on the order of 10 MW. The initial rise time of the pulse is variable and two experiments were conducted to demonstrate initial rise times of 12 and 3 ns, corresponding to a spectral content from 4-30 and from 4-100 MHz, respectively. A SPICE model has been developed to accurately predict the circuit behavior and scaling laws have been identified to allow for circuit design at higher frequencies and higher peak power. The applications, circuit analysis, test stand, experimental results, circuit modeling, and design of future systems are all discussed.

Pulse oximeters are ubiquitous in modern medicine to noninvasively measure the percentage of oxygenated hemoglobin in a patient's blood by comparing the transmission characteristics of red and infrared light-emitting diode light through the patient's finger with a photoreceptor. We present an analog single-chip pulse oximeter with 4.8-mW total power dissipation, which is an order of magnitude below our measurements on commercial implementations. The majority of this power reduction is due to the use of a novel logarithmic transimpedance amplifier with inherent contrast sensitivity, distributed amplification, unilateralization, and automatic loop gain control. The transimpedance amplifier, together with a photodiode current source, form a high-performance photoreceptor with characteristics similar to those found in nature, which allows LED power to be reduced. Therefore, our oximeter is well suited for portable medical applications, such as continuous home-care monitoring for elderly or chronic patients, emergency patient transport, remote soldier monitoring, and wireless medical sensing. Furthermore, our design obviates the need for an A-to-D and digital signal processor and leads to a small single-chip solution. We outline how extensions of our work could lead to submilliwatt oximeters.

Recently, the development of intense ultrashort laser pulses has attracted much interest because of their significant applications in many fields of science and technology. This thesis contributes to the generation, shaping, compression, characterization and application of intense ultrashort laser pulses as follows: 1. Laser pulses of 17.5-fs with a peak power of 0.1-TW at 1-kHz repetition rate have been generated by a compact single-stage ten-pass Ti:sapphire amplifier system with a high-order-dispersion-mirror compensator and a spectral shaping for the first time. The experimental results are in reasonable agreement with numerical calculations. 2. The first experimental study on arbitrary shaping of intense ultrashort pulses has been conducted in a kHz amplifier system capable of generating 27 fs pulses by using an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter (AOPDF). 17-fs transform-limited pulses have been achieved and arbitrary shaping of these 17-fs pulses has been demonstrated both in the temporal and ...

This presentation discusses the use of magnetic flux compression for space flight applications as a propulsion and other powerapplications. The qualities of this technology that make it suitable for spaceflight propulsion and power, are that it has high power density, it can give multimegawatt energy bursts, and terawatt power bursts, it can produce the pulsepower for low impedance dense plasma devices (e.g., pulse fusion drivers), and it can produce direct thrust. The issues of a metal vs plasma armature are discussed, and the requirements for high energy output, and fast pulse rise time requires a high speed armature. The plasma armature enables repetitive firing capabilities. The issues concerning the high temperature superconductor stator are also discussed. The concept of the radial mode pulsepower generator is described. The proposed research strategy combines the use of computational modeling (i.e., magnetohydrodynamic computations, and finite element modeling) and laboratory experiments to create a demonstration device.

We fully characterize a high-peak power, ultrashort laser pulse in a Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification laser system. The phase and contrast of the 20 fs pulse are determined by using frequency-resolved optical gating and high dynamic range cross-correlation techniques. The result of the phase measurement of the pulse indicate that the predominant phase distortion is quartic. The measured contrast of the pulse is of the order of 10{sup -6} limited by amplified spontaneous emission coming from the amplifiers. (author)

An improved high-voltage pulse generator is described which is especially useful in ultrasonic testing of rock core samples. An N number of capacitors are charged in parallel to V volts and at the proper instance are coupled in series to produce a high-voltage pulse of N times V volts. Rapid switching of the capacitors from the paralleled charging configuration to the series discharging configuration is accomplished by using silicon-controlled rectifiers which are chain self-triggered following the initial triggering of the first rectifier connected between the first and second capacitors. A timing and triggering circuit is provided to properly synchronize triggering pulses to the first SCR at a time when the charging voltage is not being applied to the parallel-connected charging capacitors. The output voltage can be readily increased by adding additional charging networks. The circuit allows the peak level of the output to be easily varied over a wide range by using a variable autotransformer in the charging circuit.

This work investigates the modification of biological materials through the applications of modern nanosecond pulsedpower, along with other forms of nanotechnologies. The work was initially envisaged as a study of the effect of intense nanosecond pulsed electric fields on cancer cells. As the work progressed, the studies suggested incorporation of additional technologies, in particular, cold plasmas, and carbon nanotubes. The reasons for these are discussed below, however, they were largely suggested by the systems that we were studying, and resulted in new and potentially important medical therapies. Using nanosecond cold plasmas powered with nanosecond pulses, collaboration with endodontists and biofilm experts demonstrated a killing effect on biofilms deep within root canals, suggesting a fundamentally new approach to an ongoing problem of root canal sterilization. This work derived from the application of nanosecond pulsedpower, resulting in effective biofilm disinfection, without excessive heating, and is being investigated for additional dental and other medical applications. In the second area, collaboration with medical and nanotube experts, studies of gliomamultiforme (GBM) led to the incorporation of functionalized carbon nanotubes. Single-walled carbon nanotube-fluorescein carbazide (SWCNT-FC) conjugates demonstrated that the entry mechanism of the single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) was through an energy-dependent endocytotic pathway. Finally, a monotonic pH sensitivity of the intracellular fluorescence emission of SWCNT-FC conjugates in human ovarian cancer cells suggests these conjugates may serve as intracellular pH sensors. Light-stimulated intracellular hydrolysis of the amide linkage and localized intracellular pH changes are proposed as mechanisms. The use of SWCNTs for cancer therapy of gliomas, resulting in hyperthermia effect after 808 nm infrared radiations, absorbed specifically by SWCNTs but not by biological tissue. Heat was only

The fifth Fundamental Science with PulsedPower: Research Opportunities and User Meeting was held in Albuquerque, NM, July 20-­23, 2014. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together leading scientists in four research areas with active fundamental science research at Sandia’s Z facility: Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF), Planetary Science, Astrophysics, and Material Science. The workshop was focused on discussing opportunities for high-­impact research using Sandia’s Z machine, a future 100 GPa class facility, and possible topics for growing the academic (off-Z-campus) science relevant to the Z Fundamental Science Program (ZFSP) and related projects in astrophysics, planetary science, MagLIF- relevant magnetized HED science, and materials science. The user meeting was for Z collaborative users to: a) hear about the Z accelerator facility status and plans, b) present the status of their research, and c) be provided with a venue to meet and work as groups. Following presentations by Mark Herrmann and Joel Lash on the fundamental science program on Z and the status of the Z facility where plenary sessions for the four research areas. The third day of the workshop was devoted to breakout sessions in the four research areas. The plenary-­ and breakout sessions were for the four areas organized by Dan Sinars (MagLIF), Dylan Spaulding (Planetary Science), Don Winget and Jim Bailey (Astrophysics), and Thomas Mattsson (Material Science). Concluding the workshop were an outbrief session where the leads presented a summary of the discussions in each working group to the full workshop. A summary of discussions and conclusions from each of the research areas follows and the outbrief slides are included as appendices.

Formerly known as Handbook of Power System Engineering, this second edition provides rigorous revisions to the original treatment of systems analysis together with a substantial new four-chapter section on power electronics applications. Encompassing a whole range of equipment, phenomena, and analytical approaches, this handbook offers a complete overview of power systems and their power electronics applications, and presents a thorough examination of the fundamental principles, combining theories and technologies that are usually treated in separate specialised fields, in a single u

A high power mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator (OPO) with picosecond pulse bunch output is experimentally demonstrated. The pump source was a high power master oscillation power amplifier (MOPA) picosecond pulsed fiber amplifier. The seed of the MOPA was a gain-switched distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser diode (LD) with picosecond pulse operation at a high repetition rate. The seed laser was amplified to 50 W by two-stage pre-amplifiers and a large mode area (LMA) Yb fiber based power-amplifier. A fiber-pigtailed acousto-optic modulator with the first order diffraction transmission was inserted into the second pre-amplifier to form a picosecond pulse bunch train and to change the peak power simultaneously. The power-amplified pulse bunches were focused to pump a wavelength-tunable OPO for emitting high power mid-infrared laser. By adjusting the OPO cavity length, the maximum average idler powers obtained at 3.1, 3.3 and 3.5 μm were 7, 6.6 and 6.4 W respectively.

This paper presents an explanation of the influence of a microwave falling edge on high-power microwave pulse combination. Through particle-in-cell simulations, we discover that the falling edge is the driving factor that limits the output power of the combined pulses. We demonstrate that the space charge field, which accumulates to become comparable to the E-field at the falling edge of the former pulse, will trap the electrons in the gas layer and decrease its energy to attain a high ionization rate. Hence, avalanche discharge, caused by trapped electrons, makes the plasma density to approach the critical density and cuts off the latter microwave pulse. An X-band combination experiment is conducted with different pulse intervals. This experiment confirms that the high density plasma induced by the falling edge can cut off the latter pulse, and that the time required for plasma recombination in the transmission channel is several microseconds. To ensure a high output power for combined pulses, the latter pulse should be moved ahead of the falling edge of the former one, and consequently, a beat wave with high peak power becomes the output by adding two pulses with normal amplitudes.

Full Text Available Simultaneous spatial and temporal focusing (SSTF of femtosecond laser pulses gives rise to strong suppression of nonlinear self-focusing during the propagation of the femtosecond laser beam. In this paper, we begin with an introduction of the principle of SSTF, followed by a review of our recent experimental results on the characterization and application of the spatiotemporally focused pulses for femtosecond laser micromachining. Finally, we summarize all of the results and give a future perspective of this technique.

We present a multimode X-band rf pulse compression system suitable for a TeV-scale electron-positron linear collider such as the Next Linear Collider (NLC). The NLC main linac operating frequency is 11.424 GHz. A single NLC rf unit is required to produce 400 ns pulses with 475 MW of peak power. Each rf unit should power approximately 5 m of accelerator structures. The rf unit design consists of two 75 MW klystrons and a dual-moded resonant-delay-line pulse compression system that produces a flat output pulse. The pulse compression system components are all overmoded, and most components are designed to operate with two modes. This approach allows high-power-handling capability while maintaining a compact, inexpensive system. We detail the design of this system and present experimental cold test results. We describe the design and performance of various components. The high-power testing of the system is verified using four 50 MW solenoid-focused klystrons run off a common 400 kV solid-state modulator. The system has produced 400 ns rf pulses of greater than 500 MW. We present the layout of our system, which includes a dual-moded transmission waveguide system and a dual-moded resonant line (SLED-II) pulse compression system. We also present data on the processing and operation of this system, which has set high-power records in coherent and phase controlled pulsed rf.

The article considered the software implementation mathematical model of the voltage pulse generator with a hard switch. The interactive object-oriented software interface provides the choice of generator parameters and the type of its load, as well as pulses parameters analysis on the load at the generator switching.

Pulse load will make the micro-grid public bus power to produce a high peak pulse due to its cyclical pulsation characteristics,, and make the micro-grid voltage fluctuations, frequency fluctuations, voltage and current distortion, power factor reduction and other adverse effects. In order to suppress the adverse effects of the pulse load on the microgrid and improve the power quality of the microgrid, this paper established the SVG simulation model in Matlab / Simulink environment, the superiority of SVG is verified by comparing the improvement of power quality before and after adding the SVG to microgrid system. The results show that the SVG model can suppress the adverse effects effectively of the pulse load on the microgrid, which is of great value and significance to the reactive power compensation and harmonic suppression of the microgrid.

Inverse Compton scattering of high-power laser pulses on relativistic electron bunches represents an attractive method for high-brightness, quasi-monoenergetic {gamma}-ray production. The efficiency of {gamma}-ray generation via inverse Compton scattering is severely constrained by the small Thomson scattering cross section. Furthermore, repetition rates of high-energy short-pulse lasers are poorly matched with those available from electron accelerators, resulting in low repetition rates for generated {gamma}-rays. Laser recirculation has been proposed as a method to address those limitations, but has been limited to only small pulse energies and peak powers. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate an alternative method for laser pulse recirculation that is uniquely capable of recirculating short pulses with energies exceeding 1 J. Inverse Compton scattering of recirculated Joule-level laser pulses has a potential to produce unprecedented peak and average {gamma}-ray brightness in the next generation of sources.

We report on the latest developments at TRUMPF Scientific Lasers in the field of ultra-short pulse lasers with highest output energies and powers. All systems are based on the mature and industrialized thin-disk technology of TRUMPF. Thin Yb:YAG disks provide a reliable and efficient solution for power and energy scaling to Joule- and kW-class picosecond laser systems. Due to its efficient one dimensional heat removal, the thin-disk exhibits low distortions and thermal lensing even when pumped under extremely high pump power densities of 10kW/cm². Currently TRUMPF Scientific Lasers develops regenerative amplifiers with highest average powers, optical parametric amplifiers and synchronization schemes. The first few-ps kHz multi-mJ thin-disk regenerative amplifier based on the TRUMPF thindisk technology was developed at the LMU Munich in 20081. Since the average power and energy have continuously been increased, reaching more than 300W (10kHz repetition rate) and 200mJ (1kHz repetition rate) at pulse durations below 2ps. First experiments have shown that the current thin-disk technology supports ultra-short pulse laser solutions >1kW of average power. Based on few-picosecond thin-disk regenerative amplifiers few-cycle optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers (OPCPA) can be realized. These systems have proven to be the only method for scaling few-cycle pulses to the multi-mJ energy level. OPA based few-cycle systems will allow for many applications such as attosecond spectroscopy, THz spectroscopy and imaging, laser wake field acceleration, table-top few-fs accelerators and laser-driven coherent X-ray undulator sources. Furthermore, high-energy picosecond sources can directly be used for a variety of applications such as X-ray generation or in atmospheric research.

To meet the increasing requirements of the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou-Cooler Storage Ring (HIRFL-CSR), a new digital pulsepower supply, which employs multi-level converter, was designed. This power supply was applied with a multi H-bridge converters series-parallel connection topology. A new control model named digital power supply regulator system (DPSRS) was proposed, and a pulsepower supply prototype based on DPSRS has been built and tested. The experimental results indicate that tracking error and ripple current meet the requirements of this design. The achievement of prototype provides a perfect model for HIRFL-CSR power supply system. -- Highlights: • The converters topology of series-parallel connection improves the power supply's performance. • The SOPC based on dual Nios II processors improves the real-time performance of system. • Pulse mode is implemented in digital power supply based on FPGA, with a smaller tracking error.

To meet the increasing requirements of the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou-Cooler Storage Ring (HIRFL-CSR), a new digital pulsepower supply, which employs multi-level converter, was designed. This power supply was applied with a multi H-bridge converters series-parallel connection topology. A new control model named digital power supply regulator system (DPSRS) was proposed, and a pulsepower supply prototype based on DPSRS has been built and tested. The experimental results indicate that tracking error and ripple current meet the requirements of this design. The achievement of prototype provides a perfect model for HIRFL-CSR power supply system.

We present a simple ultraviolet sub-nanosecond pulse generator using commercial ultraviolet light-emitting diodes with peak emission wavelengths of 290 nm, 318 nm, 338 nm, and 405 nm. The generator is based on step recovery diode, short-circuited transmission line, and current-shaping circuit. The narrowest pulses achieved have 630 ps full width at half maximum at repetition rate of 80 MHz. Optical pulsepower in the range of several hundreds of microwatts depends on the applied bias voltage. The bias voltage dependences of the output optical pulse width and peak power are analysed and discussed. Compared to commercial UV sub-nanosecond generators, the proposed generator can produce much higher pulse repetition rate and peak power.

In parallel excitation, the computational speed of numerical radiofrequency (RF) pulse design methods is critical when subject dependencies and system nonidealities need to be incorporated on-the-fly. One important concern with optimization-based methods is high peak RF power exceeding hardware or safety limits. Hence, online controllability of the peak RF power is essential. Variable-rate selective excitation pulse reshaping is ideally suited to this problem due to its simplicity and low computational cost. In this work, we first improve the fidelity of variable-rate selective excitation implementation for discrete-time waveforms through waveform oversampling such that variable-rate selective excitation can be robustly applied to numerically designed RF pulses. Then, a variable-rate selective excitation-guided numerical RF pulse design is suggested as an online RF pulse design framework, aiming to simultaneously control peak RF power and compensate for off-resonance. PMID:22135085

Progressive developments in temporal shaping of short laser pulses offer entirely new approaches at influence and investigate laser-matter-interactions. Commonly used parameters for describing the behavior of short or ultrashort pulses or pulse trains are fluence and intensity. However, fluence does not imply any information about the temporal behavior of energy input during specific pulse duration τ while using the pulse intensity as describing parameter is more meaningful. Nevertheless it still is an averaging over pulse duration and no change in intensity can be determined if the temporal pulse shape changes within a certain combination of pulse duration and pulse energy. Using a flexible programmable MOPA fiber laser experimental studies on the impact of temporal energy distribution within one single laser pulse in micro machining applications were therefore carried out. With this laser source a direct modulation of the temporal pulse shape in the nanosecond regime can easily be controlled. Experiments were carried out with moved as well as with un-moved beam resulting in areas and dimples respectively drilling holes. The presented results clearly show that any averaging over pulse duration results in missing information about time-dependent interactions but can at the same time lead to significant differences in ablation results. Thus, resulting surface roughness Sa can be decreased up to 25 % when changing the pulse shape at constant parameters of fluence and pulse peak power at a pulse duration of 30 ns. It can be observed that the combination of an intensity peak and a lower edge within one pulse can lead to increasing ablation efficiency as well as higher ablation quality compared to the commonly used Gaussian-like temporal pulse shape.

A high-powerpulsed magnetized arc discharge has been developed to allow the superimposition of a dc plasma and a high-power plasma impulse with a single plasma source. A capacitor bank (8400 mu F) is parallel-coupled to the current regulated power supply. The current is transiently increased from i

Thanks to important development efforts completed internally and with the European Space Agency (ESA) funding, Air Liquide Advanced Technology Division (AL/DTA) is now in position to propose two Pulse Tube cooler systems in the 40-80K temperature range for coming Earth Observation missions such as Meteosat Third Generation (MTG), SIFTI, etc... The Miniature Pulse Tube Cooler (MPTC) is lifting up to 2.47W@80K with 50W maximal compressor input power and 10°C rejection temperature. The weight is 2.8 kg. The Large Pulse Tube Cooler (LPTC) is providing 2.3W@50K for 160W input power and 10°C rejection temperature. This product is weighing 5.1 kg. The two pulse tube coolers thermo-mechanical units are qualified against environmental constraints as per ESA ECSS-E-30. They are both using dual opposed pistons flexure bearing compressor with moving magnet linear motors in order to ensure very high lifetime. The associated Cooler Drive Electronics is also an important aspect specifically regarding the active control of the cooler thermo-mechanical unit during the launch phase and the active reduction of the vibrations induced by the compressor (partly supported by the French Agency CNES). This paper details the presentation of the two Pulse Tube Coolers together with the Cooler Drive Electronics aspects.

using switch-mode power amplifier aided by various linearization techniques can present a feasible way to achieve both high linearity and high power efficiency. In this paper two different implementations of the switch-mode power amplifier a re p resented for varying envelop applications: the RF pulse...

The book introduces ‘the state of the art' of pulsed laser ablation and its applications. It is based on recent theoretical and experimental studies. The book reaches from the basics to advanced topics of pulsed laser ablation. Theoretical and experimental fundamental phenomena involved in pulsed laser ablation are discussed with respect to material properties, laser wavelength, fluence and intensity regime of the light absorbed linearly or non-linearly in the target material. The energy absorbed by the electrons leads to atom/molecule excitation, ionization and/or direct chemical bond breaking and is also transferred to the lattice leading to material heating and phase transitions. Experimental non-invasive optical methods for analyzing these phenomena in real time are described. Theoretical models for pulsed laser ablation and phase transitions induced by laser beams and laser-vapour/plasma interaction during the plume expansion above the target are also presented. Calculations of the ablation speed and...

We present nonlinear pulse compression of a high-power SESAM-modelocked thin-disk laser (TDL) using an Ar-filled hypocycloid-core kagome hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF). The output of the modelocked Yb:YAG TDL with 127 W average power, a pulse repetition rate of 7 MHz, and a pulse duration of 740 fs was spectrally broadened 16-fold while propagating in a kagome HC-PCF containing 13 bar of static argon gas. Subsequent compression tests performed using 8.4% of the full available power resulted in a pulse duration as short as 88 fs using the spectrally broadened output from the fiber. Compressing the full transmitted power through the fiber (118 W) could lead to a compressed output of >100 W of average power and >100 MW of peak power with an average power compression efficiency of 88%. This simple laser system with only one ultrafast laser oscillator and a simple single-pass fiber pulse compressor, generating both high peak power >100 MW and sub-100-fs pulses at megahertz repetition rate, is very interesting for many applications such as high harmonic generation and attosecond science with improved signal-to-noise performance.

This monograph is a first-of-its-kind compilation on high deposition pulse current GMAW process. The nine chapters of this monograph may serve as a comprehensive knowledge tool to use advanced welding engineering in prospective applications. The contents of this book will prove useful to the shop floor welding engineer in handling this otherwise critical welding process with confidence. It will also serve to inspire researchers to think critically on more versatile applications of the unique nature of pulse current in GMAW process to develop cutting edge welding technology.

The 4K stage is a critical step for space missions. The Hershel mission is using a helium bath, which is consumed day by day (after depletion, the space mission is over) while the Plank mission is equipped with one He4 Joule-Thomson cooler. Cryogenic chain without helium bath is a challenge for space missions and 4.2K Pulse-Tube working at high frequency (around 30Hz) is one option to take it up. A low temperature Pulse-Tube would be suitable for the ESA space mission EChO (Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory, expected launch in 2022), which requires around 30mW cooling power at 6K; and for the ESA space mission ATHENA (Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics), to pre-cool the sub-kelvin cooler (few hundreds of mW at 15K). The test bench described in this paper combines a Gifford-McMahon with a coaxial Pulse-Tube. A thermal link is joining the intercept of the Pulse-Tube and the second stage of the Gifford-McMahon. This intercept is a separator between the hot and the cold regenerators of the Pulse-Tube. The work has been focused on the cold part of this cold finger. Coupled with an active phase shifter, this Pulse-Tube has been tested and optimized and temperatures as low as 6K have been obtained at 30Hz with an intercept temperature at 20K.

We report on an industrial fiber-delivered laser system producing ultra-short pulses in the range of a few picoseconds down to a few hundred femtoseconds with high average power suitable for high-precision micromachining. The delivery fiber is a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber with a Kagomé shaped lattice and a hypocycloid core wall enabling the guiding of laser radiation over several meters with exceptionally low losses and preservation of high beam quality (M2laser head providing a compact footprint without the need for external boxes. The laser head is carefully designed regarding its thermo-mechanical properties to allow a highly reliable coupling stability. The exchangeable delivery fiber is packaged using Trumpf's well established LLK-D connectors which offer a very high mechanical precision, the possibility to add water cooling, as well as full featured safety functions. The fiber is hermetically sealed and protected by a robust but flexible shield providing bend protection and break detection. We show the linear and nonlinear optical properties of the transported laser radiation and discuss its feasibility for pulse compression. Measurements are supported by simulation of pulse propagation by solving the nonlinear Schrödinger equation implementing the split-step Fourier method. In addition, mode properties are measured and confirmed by finite element method simulations. The presented industrial laser system offers the known advantages of ultra-short pulses combined with the flexibility of fiber delivery yielding a versatile tool perfectly suitable for all kinds of industrial micromachining applications.

KALI-1000 pulsepower system has been used to generate single pulse nanosecond duration high-power microwaves (HPM) from a virtual cathode oscillator (VIRCATOR) device. HPM power measurements were carried out using a transmitting–receiving system in the presence of intense high frequency (a few MHz) electromagnetic noise. Initially, the diode detector output signal could not be recorded due to the high noise level persisting in the ambiance. It was found that the HPM pulse can be successfully detected using wide band antenna, RF cable and diode detector set-up in the presence of significant electromagnetic noise. Estimated microwave peak power was ∼ 59.8 dBm (∼ 1 kW) at 7 m distance from the VIRCATOR window. Peak amplitude of the HPM signal varies on shot-to-shot basis. Duration of the HPM pulse (FWHM) also varies from 52 ns to 94 ns for different shots.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Goal of this STTR is to develop a high speed, high power, waveguide based modulator (phase and amplitude) and investigate its use as a pulse slicer. The key...

Full Text Available Magnetic Pulse Welding (MPW applies the electromagnetic principles postulated in the XIXth century and later demonstrated. In recent years the process has been developed to meet highly demanding market needs involving dissimilar material joining, specially involving difficult-to-weld materials. It is a very high speed joining process that uses an electromagnetic force to accelerate one material against the other, resulting in a solid state weld with no external heat source and no thermal distortions. A high power source, the capacitor, a discharge switch and a coil constitute the minimum equipment necessary for this process. A high intensity current flowing through a coil near an electrically conductive material, locally produce an intense magnetic field that generates eddy currents in the flyer according to Lenz law. The induced electromotive force gives rise to a current whose magnetic field opposes the original change in magnetic flux. The effect of this secondary current moving in the primary magnetic field is the generation of a Lorentz force, which accelerates the flyer at a very high speed. If a piece of material is placed in the trajectory of the flyer, the impact will produce an atomic bond in a solid state weld. This paper discusses the fundamentals of the process in terms of phenomenology and analytical modeling and numerical simulation. Recent industrial applications are presented in terms of materials, joint configurations and real examples as well as advantages and disadvantages of the process.

This letter proposes a UWB pulse generator topology featuring low peak power dissipation for applications with stringent instantaneous power requirements. This is accomplished by employing a new slow-charge fast-discharge approach to extend the time duration of the generator's peak current so...

Diode lasers are ideally suited for the generation of optical pulses in the nanoseconds and picoseconds ranges by gainswitching, Q-switching or mode-locking. We have developed diode-laser based light sources where the pulses are spectrally stabilized and nearly-diffraction limited as required by many applications. Diffraction limited emission is achieved by a several microns wide ridge waveguide (RW), so that only the fundamental lateral mode should lase. Spectral stabilization is realized with a Bragg grating integrated into the semiconductor chip, resulting in distributed feedback (DFB) or distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) lasers. We obtained a peak power of 3.8W for 4ns long pulses using a gain-switched DFB laser and a peak power of more than 4W for 65ps long pulses using a three-section DBR laser. Higher peak powers of several tens of Watts can be reached by an amplification of the pulses with semiconductor optical amplifiers, which can be either monolithically or hybrid integrated with the master oscillators. We developed compact modules with a footprint of 4×5cm2 combining master oscillator, tapered power amplifier, beam-shaping optical elements and high-frequency electronics. In order to diminish the generation of amplified spontaneous emission between the pulses, the amplifier is modulated with short-pulses of high amplitude, too. Beyond the amplifier, we obtained a peak power of more than 10W for 4ns long pulses, a peak power of about 35W for 80ps long pulses and a peak power of 70W for 10ps long pulses at emission wavelengths around 1064nm.

Introduction Structure of a Generic Electric Power System Power System Models Power System Control Power System Security Assessment Power System Optimization as a Function of Time Review of Optimization Techniques Applicable to Power Systems Electric Power System Models Complex Power Concepts Three-Phase Systems Per Unit Representation Synchronous Machine Modeling Reactive Capability Limits Prime Movers and Governing Systems Automatic Gain Control Transmission Subsystems Y-Bus Incorporating the Transformer Effect Load Models Available Transfer Capability Illustrative Examples Power

The design and test results of the Pulse Transformer (PT) for the klystron with a voltage of 120 kV,klystron current of 130 A and a pulse duration of 1.4 ms is presented. The PT design was realized with taking into account the following requirements: no edge effect on the secondary winding; no overvoltage along the secondary winding at the klystron breakdown; random high voltage breakdowns may occur only between metal parts, not on the windings;the sharp voltage edge applied to the primary winding should not cause a turn-to-turn overvoltage.

Full Text Available @csir.co.za Telephone number of main author: +27-12-841-3447 Fax number of main author: +27-12-841-3152 Complete mailing address of main author: L R Botha, P O Box 395, Building 46, 2 nd Floor, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa Topic Area: Gas lasers including metal....1  Hz. If the relationship 4.0 vt is used then pulses as short as 0.5 ps can be amplified. The gain bandwidth can be increased by using isotopic mixtures and consequently this will allow pulses shorter than 0.5ps to be amplified. Gas lasers...

This book presents a comprehensive set of guidelines and applications of DIgSILENT PowerFactory, an advanced power system simulation software package, for different types of power systems studies. Written by specialists in the field, it combines expertise and years of experience in the use of DIgSILENT PowerFactory with a deep understanding of power systems analysis. These complementary approaches therefore provide a fresh perspective on how to model, simulate and analyse power systems. It presents methodological approaches for modelling of system components, including both classical and non-

Strong disturbance in the wake of the laser pulses propagating in underdense plasma and consequent unstable electron acceleration by the wakefield can be provoked by pulse's halo, which always exists as a result of an imperfect optical focusing. When the power in the halo part exceeds a critical level for the self-focusing, it evolves in the plasma as an independent mode, which later gets coupled with the propagation of the central Gaussian spot of the pulse resulting in a novel instability. Here, this instability is investigated numerically via fully relativistic 3D particle-in-cell simulations and is shown to be partially suppressed by using plasma channels for pulse guiding.

A new type of variable polarity welding power modulated with high-frequency pulse current is developed.Series of high-frequency pulse current is superimposed on direct-current-electrode-negative (DCEN), which can improve the crystallization process in the weld bead as a result of the electromagnetic force generated by pulse current.Digital signal processor (DSP) is used to realize the closed-loop control of the first inverter, variable polarity output of the second inverter and high-frequency pulse current superposition.

An overview of the Czech national R&D project HiLASE(High average powerpulsed laser) is presented. The project focuses on the development of advanced high repetition rate, diode pumped solid state laser(DPSSL) systems with energies in the range from mJ to 100 J and repetition rates in the range from 10 Hz to 100 kHz. Some applications of these lasers in research and hi-tech industry are also presented.

Full Text Available Novel techniques have been searched in the last decades as a result of increasing demand for high quality food products. Non-thermal processing technologies, such as pulsed electric fields (PEF have been improved to achieve inhibition of deleterious effects on quality-related compounds. The working principle of PEF is based on the application of pulses of high voltage (typically above 20 kV/cm up to 70 kV/cm to liquid foods placed between two electrodes. Pulsed electric fields technique has also been studied in winemaking process. Certain positive influences of PEF on vinification have been reported as elimination of pathogenic microorganisms, reduction of maceration time, increase in phenolic compounds extraction , acceleration of wine aging and inactivation of oxidative enzymes. The aim of this review is to summarize the potential applications of PEF in winemaking and to express its effects on quality of wine.

The combination of optical microscopy and ultrafast spectroscopy make the spatial characterization of chemical kinetics on the femtosecond time scale possible. Commercially available octave-spanning Ti:Sapphire oscillators with sub-8 fs pulse durations can drive a multitude of nonlinear transitions across a significant portion of the visible spectrum with minimal average power. Unfortunately, dispersion from microscope objectives broadens pulse durations, decreases temporal resolution and lowers the peak intensities required for driving nonlinear transitions. In this dissertation, pulse shaping is used to compress laser pulses after the microscope objective. By using a binary genetic algorithm, pulse-shapes are designed to enable selective two-photon excitation. The pulse-shapes are demonstrated in two-photon fluorescence of live COS-7 cells expressing GFP-variants mAmetrine and tdTomato. The pulse-shaping approach is applied to a new multiphoton fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) stoichiometry method that quantifies donor and acceptor molecules in complex, as well as the ratio of total donor to acceptor molecules. Compared to conventional multi-photon imaging techniques that require laser tuning or multiple laser systems to selectively excite individual fluorophores, the pulse-shaping approach offers rapid selective multifluorphore imaging at biologically relevant time scales. By splitting the laser beam into two beams and building a second pulse shaper, a pulse-shaping-based pump-probe microscope is developed. The technique offers multiple imaging modalities, such as excited state absorption (ESA), ground state bleach (GSB), and stimulated emission (SE), enhancing contrast of structures via their unique quantum pathways without the addition of contrast agents. Pulse-shaping based pump-probe microscopy is demonstrated for endogenous chemical-contrast imaging of red blood cells. In the second section of this dissertation, ultrafast spectroscopic

This thesis presents a solid state thyristor switched power supply capable of providing 50 kJ from a high voltage capacitor to a railgun. The efficiency with which energy is transferred from a power supply to a projectile depends strongly on power supply characteristics. This design will provide a better impedance match to the railgun than power supplies utilizing spark gap switches. This supply will cost less and take up less volume than a similar supply using spark gap switches; it wil...

kV capacitors, a thyratron switch and a 10:1 iron-core pulse transformer, and is insulated by 30 psig SF6. Each is capable of charging four...Figure 8. ACLIA cell output from 2-D TL model . A layout for the accelerator is sketched in Fig. 9. Seven cells provide 8.75 MeV of

We present a novel method of reducing the footprint and increasing the efficiency of the modern multi-MW rf pulse compressor. This system utilizes a high power rf polarizer to couple two circular waveguide modes in quadrature to a single resonant cavity in order to replicate the response of a traditional two cavity configuration using a 4-port hybrid. The 11.424 GHz, high-Q, spherical cavity has a 5.875 cm radius and is fed by the circularly polarized signal to simultaneously excite the degenerate T E114 modes. The overcoupled spherical cavity has a Q0 of 9.4 ×104 and coupling factor (β ) of 7.69 thus providing a loaded quality factor QL of 1.06 ×104 with a fill time of 150 ns. Cold tests of the polarizer demonstrated good agreement with the numerical design, showing transmission of -0.05 dB and reflection back to the input rectangular WR 90 waveguide less than -40 dB over a 100 MHz bandwidth. This novel rf pulse compressor was tested at SLAC using XL-4 Klystron that provided rf power up to 32 MW and generated peak output power of 205 MW and an average of 135 MW over the discharged signal. A general network analysis of the polarizer is discussed as well as the design and high power test of the rf pulse compressor.

Multiple-load induction cooking applications are suitable used when multi-output inverters or multi-inverters are needed for multiple-load operation. Some common approaches and modifications are needed in inverter configuration for multiple-load application. This paper presents an inverter configuration with two loads by using pulse density modulation control technique. It allows the output power control of each load independently with constant switching frequency and constant duty ratio. The pulse density modulation control technique is obtained using phase on–off control between two legs of the inverter to reduce acoustic noise. Thetwo-load three-leg inverter configuration provides reduction of the component count for extension of multiple loads. The control technique provides a wide range of output power control. In addition, it can achieve efficient and stable zero voltage switching operation in the whole load range. The proposed control scheme is simulated and experimentally verified with two-load inverter configuration.

The effect of high-power nanosecond (20 ns) and femtosecond (120 fs) laser pulses on silicon nanostructures produced by ion-beam-assisted synthesis in SiO{sub 2} layers or by deposition onto glassy substrates is studied. Nanosecond annealing brings about a photoluminescence band at about 500 mn, with the intensity increasing with the energy and number of laser pulses. The source of the emission is thought to be the clusters of Si atoms segregated from the oxide. In addition, the nanosecond pulses allow crystallization of amorphous silicon nanoprecipitates in SiO{sub 2}. Heavy doping promotes crystallization. The duration of femtosecond pulses is too short for excess Si to be segregated from SiO{sub 2}. At the same time, such short pulses induce crystallization of Thin a-Si films on glassy substrates. The energy region in which crystallization is observed for both types of pulses allows short-term melting of the surface layer.

Using rf pulse compression it will be possible to boost the 50- to 100-MW output expected from high-power microwave tubes operating in the 10- to 20-GHz frequency range to the 300- to 1000-MW level required by the next generation of high-gradient linacs for linear colliders. A high-power X-band three-stage binary rf pulse compressor has been implemented and operated at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). In each of three successive stages, the rf pulse-length is compressed by half, and the peak power is approximately doubled. The experimental results presented here have been obtained at power levels up to 25-MW input (from an X-Band klystron) and up to 120-MW output (compressed to 60 nsec). Peak power gains greater than 5.2 have been measured. 5 refs., 6 figs., 5 tabs.

A review of reports made on the International Forum on Advanced High-Power Lasers and Applications, which was held at the beginning of November 1999 in Osaka (Japan), is presented. Five conferences were held during the forum on High-Power Laser Ablation, High-Power Lasers in Energy Engineering, High-Power Lasers in Civil Engineering and Architecture, High-Power Lasers in Manufacturing, and Advanced High-Power Lasers. The following trends in the field of high-power lasers and their applications were presented: laser fusion, laser applications in space, laser-triggered lightning, laser ablation of materials by short and ultrashort pulses, application of high-power lasers in manufacturing, application of high-power lasers in mining, laser decommissioning and decontamination of nuclear reactors, high-power solid-state and gas lasers, x-ray and free-electron lasers. One can find complete information on the forum in SPIE, vols. 3885-3889.

We have investigated the scaling of peak vacuum ultraviolet output power from homogeneous Xe dielectric barrier discharges excited by short voltage pulses. Increasing the Xe fill pressure above 1-bar provides an increased output pulse energy, a shortened pulse duration and increases in the peak output power of two to three orders of magnitude. High peak powerpulses of up to 6 W cm{sup -2} are generated with a high efficiency for pulse rates up to 50 kHz. We show that the temporal pulse characteristics are in good agreement with results from detailed computer modelling of the discharge kinetics.

A digital switching power amplifier with Multivariable Enhanced Cascade Controlled (MECC) includes a modulator, a switching power stage and a low pass filter. In the first preferred embodiment an enhanced cascade control structure local to the switching power stage is added, characterised by havi...... and feedback path A to determine stable self-oscillating conditions. An implemented 250W example MECC digital power amplifier has proven superior performance in terms of audio performance (0.005 % distortion, 115 dB dynamic range) and efficiency (92 %).......A digital switching power amplifier with Multivariable Enhanced Cascade Controlled (MECC) includes a modulator, a switching power stage and a low pass filter. In the first preferred embodiment an enhanced cascade control structure local to the switching power stage is added, characterised by having...

Omega-P demonstrated triggered electron-beam switches on the L=2 m dual-delay-line X-band pulse compressor at Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). In those experiments, with input pulses of up to 9 MW from the Omega-P/NRL X-band magnicon, output pulses having peak powers of 140-165 MW and durations of 16-20 ns were produced, with record peak power gains M of 18-20. Switch designs are described based on the successful results that should be suitable for use with the existing SLAC SLED-II delay line system, to demonstrate C=9, M=7, and n>>78%, yielding 173ns compressed pulses with peak powers up to 350MW with input of a single 50-MW.

A superconducting magnetic storage system (SMES) has some advantages such as rapid large power response and high storage efficiency which are superior to other energy storage systems. A flywheel motor generator (FWMG) has large scaled capacity and high reliability, and hence is broadly utilized for a large pulsed load, while it has comparatively low storage efficiency due to high mechanical loss compared with SMES. A fusion power plant such as International Thermo-Nuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) requires a large and long pulsed load which causes a frequency deviation in a utility power system. In order to keep the frequency within an allowable deviation, we propose a hybrid power system for the pulsed load, which equips the SMES and the FWMG with the utility power system. We evaluate installation cost and frequency control performance of three power systems combined with energy storage devices; (i) SMES with the utility power, (ii) FWMG with the utility power, (iii) both SMES and FWMG with the utility power. The first power system has excellent frequency power control performance but its installation cost is high. The second system has inferior frequency control performance but its installation cost is the lowest. The third system has good frequency control performance and its installation cost is attained lower than the first power system by adjusting the ratio between SMES and FWMG.

The aim of this study was to construct an advanced high-powerpulsed light device for decontamination of food matrix and to evaluate its antibacterial efficiency. Key parameters of constructed device-emitted light spectrum, pulse duration, pulsepower density, frequency of pulses, dependence of emitted spectrum on input voltage, irradiation homogenicity, possible thermal effects as well as antimicrobial efficiency were evaluated. Antimicrobial efficiency of high-powerpulsed light technique was demonstrated and evaluated by two independent methods - spread plate and Miles-Misra method. Viability of Salmonella typhimurium as function of a given light dose (number of pulses) and pulse frequency was examined. According to the data obtained, viability of Salmonella typhimurium reduced by 7 log order after 100 light pulses with power density 133 W cm(-2). In addition, data indicate, that the pulse frequency did not influence the outcome of pathogen inactivation in the region 1-5 Hz. Moreover, no hyperthermic effect was detected during irradiation even after 500 pulses on all shelves with different distance from light source and subsequently different pulsepower density (0-252 W cm(-2)). Newly constructed high-powerpulsed light technique is effective nonthermal tool for inactivation of Salmonella typhimurium even by 7 log order in vitro. Novel advanced high-powerpulsed light device can be a useful tool for development of nonthermal food decontamination technologies.

An analysis is made of the current break process in microsecond plasma opening switches and their possible application in high-current generators. Necessary conditions are determined for generating megavolt pulses in the erosion mode of a plasma opening switch with the gap insulated by an external magnetic field. Under these conditions, efficient sharpening of high-power submegampere current pulses can be achieved. The possibility of using plasma opening switches operating at voltages of 5 6 MV to generate X-ray and gamma emission is discussed. The main operating and design parameters of a six-module plasma opening switch with a current pulse amplitude of 3.7 MA and voltage of 4 6 MV for use in the MOL generator, which is the prototype of one of the 24 modules of the projected Baikal multimegajoule generator, are estimated by using the available scalings.

Image processing algorithms based on the mammalian visual cortex are powerful tools for extraction information and manipulating images. This book reviews the neural theory and translates them into digital models. Applications are given in areas of image recognition, foveation, image fusion and information extraction. The third edition reflects renewed international interest in pulse image processing with updated sections presenting several newly developed applications. This edition also introduces a suite of Python scripts that assist readers in replicating results presented in the text and to further develop their own applications.

We present high average power picosecond and nanosecond pulse delivery at 1030 nm and 1064 nm wavelengths respectively through a novel hollow-core Negative Curvature Fiber (NCF) for high-precision micro-machining applications. Picosecond pulses with an average power above 36 W and energies of 92 µJ, corresponding to a peak power density of 1.5 TWcm⁻² have been transmitted through the fiber without introducing any damage to the input and output fiber end-faces. High-energy nanosecond pulses (>1 mJ), which are ideal for micro-machining have been successfully delivered through the NCF with a coupling efficiency of 92%. Picosecond and nanosecond pulse delivery have been demonstrated in fiber-based laser micro-machining of fused silica, aluminum and titanium.

(v¿e?); a state feedback block A with compensation; a reference shaping block $i(R) to modify the pulsed reference $i(v¿r?) for optimized error estimation; a difference block to generate an error signal and a compensator $i(C) to shape this error. The invention makes it possible to implement practical digital...

This book presents the application of pulsed electrical discharges in water and water dispersions of metal nanoparticles in medicine (surgery, dentistry, and oncology), biology, and ecology. The intensive electrical and shock waves represent a novel technique to destroy viruses and this way to prepare anti-virus vaccines. The method of pulsed electrical discharges in water allows to decontaminate water from almost all known bacteria and spores of fungi being present in human beings. The nanoparticles used are not genotoxic and mutagenic. This book is useful for researchers and graduate students.

A high-average power, laser-diode-pumped, picosecond-pulse regenerative chirpedpulse amplifier was developed by using the thin-rod Yb:YAG laser architecture. An averageoutput power of 20 W was achieved at a repetition rate of 100 kHz with an output pulse width of 2ps.

Increasing the peak rf power available from X-band microwave tubes by means of rf pulse compression is envisioned as a way of achieving the few-hundred-megawatt power levels needed to drive a next-generation linear collider with 50--100 MW klystrons. SLED-II is a method of pulse compression similar in principal to the SLED method currently in use on the SLC and the LEP injector linac. It utilizes low-los resonant delay lines in place of the storage cavities of the latter. This produces the added benefit of a flat-topped output pulse. At SLAC, we have designed and constructed a prototype SLED-II pulse-compression system which operates in the circular TE{sub 01} mode. It includes a circular-guide 3-dB coupler and other novel components. Low-power and initial high-power tests have been made, yielding a peak power multiplication of 4.8 at an efficiency of 40%. The system will be used in providing power for structure tests in the ASTA (Accelerator Structures Test Area) bunker. An upgraded second prototype will have improved efficiency and will serve as a model for the pulse compression system of the NLCTA (Next Linear Collider Test Accelerator).

Increasing the peak rf power available from X-band microwave tubes by means of rf pulse compression is envisioned as a way of achieving the few-hundred-megawatt power levels needed to drive a next-generation linear collider with 50--100 MW klystrons. SLED-II is a method of pulse compression similar in principal to the SLED method currently in use on the SLC and the LEP injector linac. It utilizes low-los resonant delay lines in place of the storage cavities of the latter. This produces the added benefit of a flat-topped output pulse. At SLAC, we have designed and constructed a prototype SLED-II pulse-compression system which operates in the circular TE{sub 01} mode. It includes a circular-guide 3-dB coupler and other novel components. Low-power and initial high-power tests have been made, yielding a peak power multiplication of 4.8 at an efficiency of 40%. The system will be used in providing power for structure tests in the ASTA (Accelerator Structures Test Area) bunker. An upgraded second prototype will have improved efficiency and will serve as a model for the pulse compression system of the NLCTA (Next Linear Collider Test Accelerator).

The US Navy is actively developing all electric fleets, raising serious questions about what is required of onboard power supplies in order to properly power the ship's electrical systems. This is especially relevant when choosing a viable power source to drive high power propulsion and electric weapon systems in addition to the conventional loads deployed aboard these types of vessels. Especially when high pulsedpower loads are supplied, the issue of maintaining power quality becomes important and increasingly complex. Conventionally, a vessel's electrical power is generated using gas turbine or diesel driven motor-generator sets that are very inefficient when they are used outside of their most efficient load condition. What this means is that if the generator is not being utilized continuously at its most efficient load capacity, the quality of the output power may also be effected and fall outside of the acceptable power quality limits imposed through military standards. As a solution to this potential problem, the Navy has proposed using electrochemical storage devices since they are able to buffer conventional generators when the load is operating below the generator's most efficient power level or able to efficiently augment a generator when the load is operating in excess of the generator's most efficient power rating. Specifically, the US Navy is interested in using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) lithium-ion batteries within an intelligently controlled energy storage module that could act as either a prime power supply for on-board pulsedpower systems or as a backup generator to other shipboard power systems. Due to the unique load profile of high-rate pulsedpower systems, the implementation of lithium-ion batteries within these complex systems requires them to be operated at very high rates and the effects these things have on cell degradation has been an area of focus. There is very little published research into the effects that high power transient

Several kinds of Near-Earth objects exist for which one would like to cause modest orbit perturbations, but which are inaccessible to normal means of interception because of their number, distance or the lack of early warning. For these objects, LISP (Laser Impulse Space Propulsion) is an appropriate technique for rapidly applying the required mechanical impulse from a ground-based station. In order of increasing laser energy required, examples are: (1) repositioning specially prepared geosynchronous satellites for an enhanced lifetime; (2) causing selected items of space junk to re-enter and burn up in the atmosphere on a computed trajectory; and (3) safely deflecting Earth-directed comet nuclei and earth-crossing asteroids (ECA's) a few tens of meters in size (the most hazardous size). They will discuss each of these problems in turn and show that each application is best matched by its own matrix of LISP laser pulse width, pulse repetition rate, wavelength and average power. The latter ranges from 100W to 3GW for the cases considered. They will also discuss means of achieving the active beam phase error correction during passage through the atmosphere and very large exit pupil in the optical system which are required in each of these cases.

The medical applications for ultra short pulse lasers (USPLs) and their associated commercial potential are reviewed. Short pulse lasers offer the surgeon the possibility of precision cutting or disruption of tissue with virtually no thermal or mechanical damage to the surrounding areas. Therefore the USPL offers potential improvement to numerous existing medical procedures. Secondly, when USPLs are combined with advanced tissue diagnostics, there are possibilities for tissue-selective precision ablation that may allow for new surgeries that cannot at present be performed. Here we briefly review the advantages of short pulse lasers, examine the potential markets both from an investment community perspective, and from the view. of the technology provider. Finally nominal performance and cost requirements for the lasers, delivery systems and diagnostics and the present state of development will be addressed.

After a brief review of the basics of {sup 14}C bomb-pulse dating, this paper presents two unique forensic applications. Particular attention is dedicated to the use of the {sup 14}C bomb-pulse to establish the time of harvest of illicit drugs such as heroin and opium. Preliminary measurements of {sup 14}C concentrations in milligram samples taken from seized drugs are presented. {sup 14}C bomb-pulse dating can determine whether drug distribution originates from stockpiles or recent manufacture, and support the action of law enforcement authorities against criminal organisations involved in drug trafficking. In addition, we describe the dating of wine vintages for a number of authenticated single label vintage red wines from the Barossa Valley - South Australia. Our results show that radiocarbon dating can be used to accurately determine wine vintages and therefore reveal the addition of unrelated materials of natural and synthetic origin.

In this paper, laser processing of technical grade stainless steel and copper using high-average-power ultrashort pulse lasers is studied in order to gain deeper insight into material removal for microfabrication. A high-pulse repetition frequency picosecond and femtosecond laser is used in conjunction with high-performance galvanometer scanners and an in-house developed two-axis polygon scanner system. By varying the processing parameters such as wavelength, pulse length, fluence and repetition rate, cavities of standardized geometry are fabricated and analyzed. From the depths of the cavities produced, the ablation rate and removal efficiency are estimated. In addition, the quality of the cavities is evaluated by means of scanning electron microscope micrographs or rather surface roughness measurements. From the results obtained, the influence of the machining parameters on material removal and machining quality is discussed. In addition, it is shown that both material removal rate and quality increase by using femtosecond compared to picosecond laser pulses. On stainless steel, a maximum throughput of 6.81 mm3/min is achieved with 32 W femtosecond laser powers; if using 187 W picosecond laser powers, the maximum is 15.04 mm3/min, respectively. On copper, the maximum throughputs are 6.1 mm3/min and 21.4 mm3/min, obtained with 32 W femtosecond and 187 W picosecond laser powers. The findings indicate that ultrashort pulses in the mid-fluence regime yield most efficient material removal. In conclusion, from the results of this analysis, a range of optimum processing parameters are derived feasible to enhance machining efficiency, throughput and quality in high-rate micromachining. The work carried out here clearly opens the way to significant industrial applications.

Full Text Available We present a multimode X-band rf pulse compression system suitable for a TeV-scale electron-positron linear collider such as the Next Linear Collider (NLC. The NLC main linac operating frequency is 11.424 GHz. A single NLC rf unit is required to produce 400 ns pulses with 475 MW of peak power. Each rf unit should power approximately 5 m of accelerator structures. The rf unit design consists of two 75 MW klystrons and a dual-moded resonant-delay-line pulse compression system that produces a flat output pulse. The pulse compression system components are all overmoded, and most components are designed to operate with two modes. This approach allows high-power-handling capability while maintaining a compact, inexpensive system. We detail the design of this system and present experimental cold test results. We describe the design and performance of various components. The high-power testing of the system is verified using four 50 MW solenoid-focused klystrons run off a common 400 kV solid-state modulator. The system has produced 400 ns rf pulses of greater than 500 MW. We present the layout of our system, which includes a dual-moded transmission waveguide system and a dual-moded resonant line (SLED-II pulse compression system. We also present data on the processing and operation of this system, which has set high-power records in coherent and phase controlled pulsed rf.

... resting for at least 10 minutes. Take the exercise heart rate while you are exercising. ... pulse rate can help determine if the person's heart is pumping. Pulse ... rate gives information about your fitness level and health.

Laser energy absorption and subsequent heat removal from diffraction gratings in chirped pulse compressors poses a significant challenge in high repetition rate, high peak power laser development. In order to understand the average power limitations, we have modeled the time-resolved thermo-mechanical properties of current and advanced diffraction gratings. We have also developed and demonstrated a technique of actively cooling Petawatt scale, gold compressor gratings to operate at 600W of average power - a 15x increase over the highest average power petawatt laser currently in operation. Combining this technique with low absorption multilayer dielectric gratings developed in our group would enable pulse compressors for petawatt peak power lasers operating at average powers well above 40kW.

In order to validate the computations of stress generated in the target container by the sudden input of a large amount of power in the liquid metal of a high-power spallation target, first experimental investigations were carried out in an international collaboration. Temperature and beam profile measurements showed that up to 61% of the incoming beam power was deposited in the target. The spatial power distribution was reconstructed from the experimental data. A computational model with consideration of fluid-structure interface was employed to simulate the pressure waves in the liquid and the resulting dynamic stress on the container. The maximum stress on the container was found to be 13.6 MP. Although experimental data are still very preliminary, a comparison of the measured stress and deformation data with the computational results showed reasonable agreement in the amplitudes, which are the most important data for engineering design. Although the methods developed to measure the strain on the target su...

Full Text Available Soy beans powder mixed with water is a good food for animals. However, there are two problems with this brew. One is that soy beans powder is sunk down to fast. Parts of soy beans powder are too big and too heavy. Animals do not eat soy beans powder because after a few minutes (around 3min is sunk down and soy beans are on the bottom case. Another negative point is a quick growth of mold, especially during summer when the temperature is highest. Mold is making food unhealthy and causes unpleasant smell. After mold appears it is difficult to clean the case. One of the solutions to eliminate these problems is to use pulsepower plasma discharge and the second solution is ultra sound treatment. It was observed that pulsepower discharge can decrease the size of soy beans powder a few times. Another advantage of such experiments was that the pulsepower discharge killed bacteria and viruses. After our experiments we did not observe mold growing. Using pulsepower discharge we can decrease sinking speed by about ten times. Ultra sound generation is useful and can decrease sinking speed even more, compared with pulsepower discharge.

Pulsed, high-power RF ion sources are needed to produce copious amounts of negative H-ions for high-power accelerators with charge-changing injection schemes. When increasing the RF power, the plasma inductance changes the RF resonance, which drifts away from the low-power resonance. When the RF circuit is tuned to maximize the (pulsed) plasma power, the (off-resonance) power at the beginning of the pulse is reduced. If the induced electric fields fall below the breakdown strength of the hydrogen gas, the plasma fails to develop. This can be avoided with a compromise tune and/or by increasing the inductance of the resonant circuit. However, the breakdown strength of the hydrogen gas increases with time due to the gradual decrease of the electron-rich plasma impurities, which causes plasma outages after weeks of reliable operation. In this paper we discuss the success of different mitigations that were tested and implemented to overcome this fundamental problem of pulsed, high-power RF hydrogen ion sources.

A pulsedpower supply with sag compensation using controlled gradational voltage to increase the flatness of output waveforms has been developed.The sag compensation circuit consists of compensation units connected in series. Each compensation unit consists of capacitances, diodes, and semiconductor switches. The capacitances of each unit are charged with different voltages by 2n (V0, 2V0, 4V0, ···). The compensation voltages, which has 2n-1 steps, is generated by switching the semiconductor switches of each unit in a binary sequence. Using this method, compensation voltage waveforms up to 6.2kV with 31 steps can be obtained with 5 compensation units. The sag compensation circuit has been adapted to a direct switch type pulsedpower supply, which generates 7kV pulsed voltage with a pulse width of 700μs, thus realizing sag compensation.

The GRENOUILLE traces of Gemini pulses (15 J, 30 fs, PW, shot per 20 s) were acquired in the Gemini Target Area PetaWatt at the Central Laser Facility (CLF), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). A comparison between the characterizations of the laser pulse parameters made using two different types of algorithms: Video Frog and GRenouille/FrOG (GROG), was made. The temporal and spectral parameters came out to be in great agreement for the two kinds of algorithms. In this experimental campaign it has been showed how GROG, the developed algorithm, works as well as VideoFrog algorithm with the PetaWatt pulse class. - Highlights: • Integration of the diagnostic tool on high power laser. • Validation of the GROG algorithm in comparison to a well-known commercial available software. • Complete characterization of the GEMINI ultra-short high power laser pulse.

Many channel arbitrary pulse sequence generation is required for the electro-optic reconfiguration of optical waveguide networks in Lithium Niobate. Here we describe a scalable solution to the requirement for mid-power bipolar parallel outputs, based on pulse patterns generated by an externally clocked field programmable gate array (FPGA). Positive and negative pulses can be generated at repetition rates from up to 80~MHz with pulse width adjustable in increments of 1.6~ns across nine independent outputs. Each channel can provide 1.5W of RF power and it can be synchronised with the operation of other components in an optical network such as light sources and detectors through an external clock with adjustable delay.

The worldwide growth in demand for electricity has forced the pace of developments in electrical power system design to meet consumer needs for reliable, secure and cheap supplies. Power system protection, as a technology essential to high quality supply, is widely recognised as a specialism of growing and often critical importance, in which power system needs and technological progress have combined to result in rapid developments in policy and practice in recent years. In the United Kingdom, the need for appropriate training in power system protection was recognised in the early 1960s with t

Highlights: • The design and the status of the 140 GHz/4 MW/1000 s ECRH system on EAST tokamak is described in detail. • Two of the four gyrotrons are tested in factory. • The transmission line and the equatorial launcher for the first 2 MW system are ready for installation. • Series tests have been carried out for the most critical elements for the real-time launcher. • The auxiliary system includes the water cooling system, the HVPS system, the vacuum system have been installed and tested. - Abstract: In accordance with the long pulse objectives of the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), an electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) system with the feature of 4 MW power for a pulse length up to 1000 s at 140 GHz, using second harmonic of the extraordinary mode (X2) is presently under construction at the institute of plasma physics, Chinese academy of sciences (ASIPP). The missions of the system are to provide central heating, current drive, plasma profile tailoring and control of magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities. The continuous wave (CW) power is transmitted from the gyrotrons to EAST via low-loss evacuated waveguide transmission lines. Considering the diverse applications of the EC system, the front steering launcher is designed to inject four individually steered beams across nearly the entire plasma cross section. The beam's launch angles can be continuously varied with the optimized scanning range of over 30° in poloidal direction and ±25° in toroidal, as well as the polarization will be adjusted during the discharge by the orientations of a pair of polarizers in the transmission line to maintain the highest absorption for different operational scenarios. The commissioning of the first 2 MW system will be commenced in the end of 2014.

This application note describes how to model steady-state power flows and transient events in electric power grids with the SPICE-compatible Xyce TM Parallel Electronic Simulator developed at Sandia National Labs. This application notes provides a brief tutorial on the basic devices (branches, bus shunts, transformers and generators) found in power grids. The focus is on the features supported and assumptions made by the Xyce models for power grid elements. It then provides a detailed explanation, including working Xyce netlists, for simulating some simple power grid examples such as the IEEE 14-bus test case.

A new ultra-wide band (UWB) modulation scheme called L-ary ultra-wide band time hopping multi-pulse position modulation (UWB-TH-MPPM) is proposed for high data-rate wireless application, which can provide better communication performance. The constant weight code is introduced to construct the MPPM signal and the comparison between MPPM and single pulse position modulation (SPPM) is done in three aspects, namely, power efficiency, bandwidth efficiency, and probability of symbol error, respectively. The theoretical analysis and the numerical results show that when the constant weight code is appropriately chosen, MPPM can achieve lower probability of symbol error and higher power efficiency than SPPM at the cost of more bandwidth under the same condition.The proposed MPPM can be a good candidate in UWB system design.

Propagation of relativistically intense azimuthally or radially polarized laser pulses (RPP) is demonstrated, via 3D particle-in-cell simulations, to be unstable in uniform underdense plasma. Strong breaking of the pulse symmetry occurs for RPP with power exceeding the critical one for self-focusing in transversely uniform plasma with an increment, Γ, close to the well-known Rayleigh-Taylor-like instability depending on the acceleration, α, and the modulated density gradient length, L, as Γ≈(α/L) 1 /2 . In deeper plasma channels, the instability vanishes. Electron self-injection in the pulse wake and resulting acceleration is explored.

The design and instrumentation intended for ATTC8739 Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria elimination in water, based on non thermal plasma generation at room pressure have been carried out by means of dielectric pulsed discharges. The latter have been produced by a power supply capable of providing voltages up to the order of 45 kV, 1-500 {mu}s pulse widths and variable frequencies between 100 Hz to 2000 Hz. This supply feeds a coaxial discharge reactor of the simple dielectric barrier type. The adequate operation of the system has been tested with the elimination of E. coli at 10{sup 4} and 10{sup 6} bacteria/ml concentrations, leading to reductions up to 85.3% and 95.1%, respectively, during the first 30 min of treatment. (Author)

We present a low-power high-speed ultra-wideband (UWB) transmitter with a wireless transmission test platform. The system is specifically designed for low-power high-speed wireless implantable biosensors. The integrated transmitter consists of a compact pulse generator and a modulator. The circuit is fabricated in the 0.5-mum silicon-on-sapphire process and occupies 420 mum times 420 mum silicon area. The transmitter is capable of generating pulses with 1-ns width and the pulse rate can be controlled between 90 MHz and 270 MHz. We built a demonstration/testing system for the transmitter. The transmitter achieves a 14-Mb/s data rate. With 50% duty cycle data, the power consumption of the chip is between 10 mW and 21 mW when the transmission distance is from 3.2 to 4 m. The core circuit size is 70 mum times 130 mum.

The design and performance of a closed-cycle repetitively pulsed DF laser are described. The Fitch circuit and thyratron switch are introduced to realize self-sustained volume discharge in SF6-D2 mixtures. The influences of gas parameters and charging voltage on output characteristics of non-chain pulsed DF laser are experimentally investigated. In order to improve the laser power stability over a long period of working time, zeolites with different apertures are used to scrub out the de-excitation particles produced in electric discharge. An average output power of the order of 100 W was obtained at an operating repetition rate of 50 Hz, with amplitude difference in laser pulses <8 %. And under the action of micropore alkaline zeolites, the average power fell by 20 % after the laser continuing working 100 s at repetition frequency of 50 Hz.

Conventional ozonizer with a high ozone output using silent or surface discharges needs a cooling system and a dielectric barrier, and therefore becomes a large machine. A compact ozonizer without the cooling system and the dielectric barrier has been developed by using a pulsedpower generated discharge. The wire to plane electrodes made of metal have been used. However, the ozone output was low. Here, a compact and high repetition rate pulsedpower generator is used as an electric source of a compact ozonizer. The ozone output of 6.1 g/h and the ozone yield of 86 g/kWh are achieved at 500 pulses per second, input average power of 280 W and an air flow rate of 20 L/min.

High performance pulsed AlGaAs/GaAs wide stripe diode laser has been developed for the automotive distance-measuring scanning radar sensor. The laser diode is required high output power of 15 W and a long time reliability in spite of being used in a harsh environment such as wide temperature range, mechanical vibrations at the front bumper and so on. The device is designed by employing a multiple quantum well structure as an active layer for high output power with low drive current and high temperature operations. Moreover we reduce catastrophic optical damage power level and control the beam divergence angle by introducing optimized optical waveguide layers. In the chips bonding part, we developed a new thin film Au-Sn-Ni solder system. The bonding temperature can be lowered by using this system, whereby the thermal damage to the laser diode can be reduced. Furthermore, highly stable bonding is carried out by improving wetting ability in this system. We have achieved more than 22 W light output power at 20A pulse current under room temperature and more than 16 W light output power under 90 degrees Celsius. High reliability over 10,000 hours is performed for automotive use under pulsed operation at 90 degrees Celsius, 50 ns pulse width, 8 kHz frequency and 15 W light output power.

, and remote power generation for light towers, camper vans, boats, beacons, and buoys etc. A review of current state-of-the-art is presented. The best performing converters achieve moderately high peak efficiencies at high input voltage and medium power level. However, system dimensioning and cost are often......The topic of this thesis is the design of high efficiency power electronic dc-to-dc converters for high-power, low-input-voltage to high-output-voltage applications. These converters are increasingly required for emerging sustainable energy systems such as fuel cell, battery or photo voltaic based...... determined by the performance at the system worst case operating point which is usually at minimum input voltage and maximum power. Except for the non-regulating V6 converters, all published solutions exhibit a very significant drop in conversion efficiency at minimum input voltage and maximum output power...

We present a high-power nanosecond-pulsed Tm-doped fiber amplifier at 1.971 μm based on a master-oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) configuration. When the repetition rate is 500 kHz and the pulse width is 63.3 ns, the average power reaches 238 W, the peak power reaches 7.06 kW, and the pulse energy is 0.477 mJ. When the pulse train's repetition rate is 300 kHz with a pulse width of 63.7 ns, the average power reaches 197 W, the peak power reaches 9.73 kW, and the pulse energy is 0.66 mJ. When the pulse train's repetition rate is 200 kHz with a pulse width of 58.2 ns, the average power reaches 150 W, the peak power reaches 12.1 kW, and the pulse energy is 0.749 mJ. The spectral linewidths of the pulse trains are 0.15, 0.14, and 0.10 nm for 500 kHz repetition rate, 300 kHz repetition rate, and 200 kHz repetition rate, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of high-power nanosecond-pulsed MOPA at 2 μm with the maximum average power reaching 238 W, the maximum peak power reaching 12.1 kW, and the maximum pulse energy reaching 0.749 mJ.

Full Text Available The purpose of the paper is to estimate an application of pulse-periodical mode for improvement of laser treatment efficiency. Laser technologies have been widely used in the processes of material treatment with the purpose to provide them the required surface properties and also for high accuracy cutting of sheet materials. Application of complex treatment is of great interest and especially when it is used for worn-out surfaces with formation of a coating by gas-flame laying of powder mixture of specific composition and subsequent laser fusion.Increase of laser unit capacity is very important task for higher efficiency of laser technology application in mechanical engineering. Nowadays technological processes using lasers with high average power (more than 100 W have been applying only sources that are working in two modes, namely: continuous and pulse- periodical (P-P with pulse repetition rate from some units to several hundred hertz and pulse duration within dozens to hundreds of microseconds and even within milliseconds. On the other hand, in some cases shielding effect of plasma cloud formed during laser alloying, cladding or welding reduces the efficiency of laser treatment up to 50 % depending on plasma composition and laser beam length. High frequency P-P laser systems with high average power working in mode of Q-factor modulation allow to realize principally other mechanism of irradiation interaction with materials that is an ablation. In this case it is possible to provide local energy release both in space and time.The performed analysis has revealed that P-P mode of laser operation for a majority of treatment processes is much better and more efficient from energetic point of view in comparison with the continuous mode. On the basis of the developments it is possible to make a conclusion that there is a possibility to create laser systems working in high frequency P-P mode with high average power above hundreds watt.

The objective of this research was to exploit wireless power transmission (microwave/millimeter)--to lower manned space transportation costs by two or three orders of magnitude. Concepts have been developed for lightweight, mass-producible, beam-propelled aerospacecraft called Lightcraft. The vehicles are designed for a 'mass-poor, energy-rich' (i.e. hyper-energentic flight infrastructure which utilizes remote microwave power stations to build an energy-beam highway to space. Although growth in laser power levels has lagged behind expectations, microwave and millimeter-wave source technology now exists for rapid scaling to the megawatt and gigawatt time-average power levels. The design exercise focused on the engine, structure, and receptive optics requirements for a 15 meter diameter, 5 person Earth- to-moon aerospacecraft. Key elements in the airbreathing accelerator propulsion system are: a) a 'flight-weight' 35GHz rectenna electric powerplant, b) microwave-induced 'Air Spike' and perimeter air-plasma generators, and c) MagnetoHydroDynamic-Fanjet engine with its superconducting magnets and external electrodes.

The precision requirements of the vertex detector at CLIC impose strong limitations on the mass of such a detector (< 0.2% of a radiation length, Xo, per layer). To achieve such a low material budget, ultra-thin hybrid pixel detectors are foreseen, while the mass for cooling and services will be reduced by implementing a powerpulsing scheme that takes advantage of the low duty cycle of the accelerator. The principal aim is to achieve significant power reduction without compromising the power integrity supplied to the front-end electronics. This report summarises the study of a powerpulsing scheme to power the vertex barrel electronics of the future CLIC experiment. Its main goal is to describe in more detail what has been already presented in TWEPP conferences and other presentations. The report can therefore serve as an operator manual for future use and development of the system

Using a pulsepower solenoid, we demonstrate efficient capture of laser accelerated proton beams and the ability to control their large divergence angles and broad energy range. Simulations using measured data for the input parameters give inference into the phase-space and transport efficiencies of the captured proton beams. We conclude with results from a feasibility study of a pulsepower compact achromatic gantry concept. Using a scaled target normal sheath acceleration spectrum, we present simulation results of the available spectrum after transport through the gantry.

A novel dual-edge implicit pulse-triggered flip-flop with an embedded clock-gating scheme (DIFF-CGS) is proposed, which employs a transmission-gate-logic (TGL) based clock-gating scheme in the pulse generation stage. This scheme condi-tionally disables the inverter chain when the input data are kept unchanged, so redundant transitions of delayed clock signals and internal nodes of the latch are all eliminated, leading to low power efficiency. Based on SMIC 65 nm technology, extensive post-layout simulation results show that the proposed DIFF-CGS gains an improvement of 41.39% to 56.21% in terms of power consumption, compared with its counterparts at 10% data-switching activity. Also, full-swing operations in both implicit pulse generation and the static latch improve the robustness of the design. Thus, DIFF-CGS is suitable for low-powerapplications in very-large-scale integration (VLSI) designs with low data-switching activities.

Full Text Available This paper reports on a pulsed coding technique based on optical Ultra-wideband (UWB modulation for wireless implantable biotelemetry systems allowing for high data rate link whilst enabling significant power reduction compared to the state-of-the-art. This optical data coding approach is suitable for emerging biomedical applications like transcutaneous neural wireless communication systems. The overall architecture implementing this optical modulation technique employs sub-nanosecond pulsed laser as the data transmitter and small sensitive area photodiode as the data receiver. Moreover, it includes coding and decoding digital systems, biasing and driving analogue circuits for laser pulse generation and photodiode signal conditioning. The complete system has been implemented on Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA and prototype Printed Circuit Board (PCB with discrete off-the-shelf components. By inserting a diffuser between the transmitter and the receiver to emulate skin/tissue, the system is capable to achieve a 128 Mbps data rate with a bit error rate less than 10−9 and an estimated total power consumption of about 5 mW corresponding to a power efficiency of 35.9 pJ/bit. These results could allow, for example, the transmission of an 800-channel neural recording interface sampled at 16 kHz with 10-bit resolution.

A neodymium-glass diode-pumped amplifier with a zigzag laser beam propagation through the active medium was elaborated; the amplifier is intended for operation in a repetitively pulsed laser. An amplifier unit with an aperture of 20 Multiplication-Sign 25 mm and a {approx}40-cm long active medium was put to a test. The energy of pump radiation amounts to 140 J at a wavelength of 806 nm for a pump duration of 550 {mu}s. The energy parameters of the amplifier were experimentally determined: the small-signal gain per pass {approx}3.2, the linear gain {approx}0.031 cm{sup -1} with a nonuniformity of its distribution over the aperture within 15%, the stored energy of 0.16 - 0.21 J cm{sup -3}. The wavefront distortions in the zigzag laser-beam propagation through the active element of the amplifier did not exceed 0.4{lambda} ({lambda} = 0.63 {mu}m is the probing radiation wavelength).

The dynamics of Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF)1, are presently under detailed study at Sandia National Laboratories. Alongside this, a comprehensive analysis of the influence of the specific liner design geometry in the MagLIF system on liner initiation is underway in the academic community. Recent work at UC San Diego utilizes a high voltage pulsed system (25kV, 150ns) to analyze the vacuum breakdown stage of liner implosion. Such experimental analyses are geared towards determining how the azimuthal symmetry of coaxial gap breakdown affect plasma initiation within the liner. The final aim of the experimental analysis is to assess to what scale symmetry remains important at high (MV) voltages. An analysis of the above will utilize plasma self-emission via optical MCP, current measurements, voltage measurements near the gap, exact location of breakdown via 2D b-dot probe triangulation, as well as measuring the evolution of the B-field along the length of the liner via b-dot array. Results will be discussed along with analytical calculations of breakdown mechanisms

In wireless communication, high data rate complex modulation is used for spectral efficiency. However, power efficiency of power amplifier degrades when complex modulation is applied. Therefore, efficiency enhancement is necessary to maintain the performance. However, conventional efficiency enhancement schemes are nonlinear and performance improvement can only be optimized over a small range of power level. In order to preserve linearity and power efficiency, we propose a new digital power amplification technique "Pulsed Load Modulation (PLM)" for high efficiency and linear amplification. The PLM technique realizes load impedance modulation in digital fashion which is insensitive to device nonlinearity. Furthermore, the optimum power efficiency can be maintained over a wide range of output power. In this work, a PLM power amplifier module has been fabricated and to demonstrate the ability of PLM to provide high efficiency and linear amplification.

Power Electronics Handbook: Components, Circuits, and Applications is a collection of materials about power components, circuit design, and applications. Presented in a practical form, theoretical information is given as formulae. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 deals with the usual components found in power electronics such as semiconductor devices and power semiconductor control components, their electronic compatibility, and protection. Part 2 tackles parts and principles related to circuits such as switches; link frequency chargers; converters; and AC line control, and Part 3

Since the late 1950s, power electronics has been developing by leaps and bounds without saturation into the key technology essential to modern society and human life, as well as to electrical engineering. This paper is focused on utility applications of power electronics technology in Japan, and on the state of the art of power semiconductor devices for high powerapplications. For instance, attention is paid to a ±500 kV, 2.8 GW high-voltage DC transmission system under construction, and to ...

Power Electronics Handbook: Components, Circuits, and Applications is a collection of materials about power components, circuit design, and applications. Presented in a practical form, theoretical information is given as formulae. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 deals with the usual components found in power electronics such as semiconductor devices and power semiconductor control components, their electronic compatibility, and protection. Part 2 tackles parts and principles related to circuits such as switches; link frequency chargers; converters; and AC line control, and Part 3

The Atlas facility, now under construction at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), will provide a unique capability for performing high-energy-density experiments in support of weapon-physics and basic-research programs. It is intended to be an international user facility, providing opportunities for researchers from national laboratories and academic institutions around the world. Emphasizing institutions around the world. Emphasizing hydrodynamic experiments, Atlas will provide the capability for achieving steady shock pressures exceeding 10-Mbar in a volume of several cubic centimeters. In addition, the kinetic energy associated with solid liner implosion velocities exceeding 12 km/s is sufficient to drive dense, hydrodynamic targets into the ionized regime, permitting the study of complex issues associated with strongly-coupled plasmas. The primary element of Atlas is a 23-MJ capacitor bank, comprised of 96 separate Marx generators housed in 12 separate oil-filled tanks, surrounding a central target chamber. Each tank will house two, independently-removable maintenance units, with each maintenance unit consisting of four Marx modules. Each Marx module has four capacitors that can each be charged to a maximum of 60 kilovolts. When railgap switches are triggered, the marx modules erect to a maximum of 240 kV. The parallel discharge of these 96 Marx modules will deliver a 30-MA current pulse with a 4-5-{micro}s risetime to a cylindrical, imploding liner via 24 vertical, tri-plate, oil-insulated transmission lines. An experimental program for testing and certifying all Marx and transmission line components has been completed. A complete maintenance module and its associated transmission line (the First Article) are now under construction and testing. The current Atlas schedule calls for construction of the machine to be complete by August, 2000. Acceptance testing is scheduled to begin in November, 2000, leading to initial operations in January, 2001.

In this paper, high-throughput ultrashort pulse laser machining is investigated on various industrial grade metals (Aluminium, Copper, Stainless steel) and Al2O3 ceramic at unprecedented processing speeds. This is achieved by using a high pulse repetition frequency picosecond laser with maximum average output power of 270 W in conjunction with a unique, in-house developed two-axis polygon scanner. Initially, different concepts of polygon scanners are engineered and tested to find out the optimal architecture for ultrafast and precision laser beam scanning. Remarkable 1,000 m/s scan speed is achieved on the substrate, and thanks to the resulting low pulse overlap, thermal accumulation and plasma absorption effects are avoided at up to 20 MHz pulse repetition frequencies. In order to identify optimum processing conditions for efficient high-average power laser machining, the depths of cavities produced under varied parameter settings are analyzed and, from the results obtained, the characteristic removal values are specified. The maximum removal rate is achieved as high as 27.8 mm3/min for Aluminium, 21.4 mm3/min for Copper, 15.3 mm3/min for Stainless steel and 129.1 mm3/min for Al2O3 when full available laser power is irradiated at optimum pulse repetition frequency.

Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifiers with high average power are possible with novel high-power Yb:YAG amplifiers with kW-level output powers. We demonstrate a compact wavelength-tunable sub-30-fs amplifier with 11.4 W average power with 20.7% pump-to-signal conversion efficiency. For parametric amplification, a beta-barium borate crystal is pumped by a 140 W, 1 ps Yb:YAG InnoSlab amplifier at 3.25 MHz repetition rate. The broadband seed is generated via supercontinuum generation in a YAG crystal.

Designed to complement a range of power electronics study resources, this unique lab manual helps students to gain a deep understanding of the operation, modeling, analysis, design, and performance of pulse-width modulated (PWM) DC-DC power converters. Exercises focus on three essential areas of power electronics: open-loop power stages; small-signal modeling, design of feedback loops and PWM DC-DC converter control schemes; and semiconductor devices such as silicon, silicon carbide and gallium nitride. Meeting the standards required by industrial employers, the lab manual combines program

Red-shift conical emission (CE) is observed by femtosecond laser pulse propagating in BK7 at a low input power (compared to those input powers for generation of blue-shift CE). With the increasing input power the blue-shift CE begins to appear whereas the red-shift CE ring (902 nm in our experiment) disappears accompanied by the augment of the central white spot size synchronously. The disappearing of red-shift CE in our experiment is explained such that the increase of axial intensity is much higher than that of ring emission and the augment of the centrai white spot size with the increasing input laser power.

Due to the low energy threshold of photodisruption with fs laser pulses, thermal and mechanical side effects are limited to the sub μm range. The neglection of side effects enables the use of ultrashort laser pulses in a broad field of medical applications. Moreover, the interaction process based on nonlinear absorption offers the opportunity to process transparent tissue three dimensionally inside the bulk. We demonstrate the feasibility of surgical procedures in different fields of medical interest: In ophthalmology intrastromal cutting and preparing of corneal flaps for refractive surgery in living animals is presented. Besides, the very low mechanical side effects enables the use of fs-laser in otoralyngology to treat ocecular bones. Moreover, the precise cutting quality can be used in fields of cardiovascular surgery for the treatment of arteriosclerosis as well as in dentistry to remove caries from dental hard tissue.

Full Text Available The paper presents development of valved pulse combustor designed for application in drying process and drying tests performed in a specially built installation. Laser technique was applied to investigate the flow field and structure of dispersed phase during pulse combustion spray drying process. PDA technique was used to determine initial atomization parameters as well as particle size distribution, velocity of the particles, mass concentration of liquid phase in the cross section of spray stream, etc., in the drying chamber during drying tests. Water was used to estimate the level of evaporation and 5 and 10% solutions of sodium chloride to carry out drying tests. The Computational Fluid Dynamics technique was used to perform theoretical predictions of time-dependent velocity, temperature distribution and particle trajectories in the drying chamber. Satisfactory agreement between calculations and experimental results was found in certain regions of the drying chamber.

The effect of pulsed voltage application on energy consumption during electrocoagulation was investigated. Three voltage profiles having the same arithmetic average with respect to time were applied to the electrodes. The specific energy consumption for these profiles were evaluated and analyzed together with oil removal efficiencies. The effects of applied voltages, electrode materials, electrode configurations, and pH on oil removal efficiency were determined. Electrocoagulation experiments were performed by using synthetic and real wastewater samples. The pulsed voltages saved energy during the electrocoagulation process. In continuous operation, energy saving was as high as 48%. Aluminum electrodes used for the treatment of emulsified oils resulted in higher oil removal efficiencies in comparison with stainless steel and iron electrodes. When the electrodes gap was less than 1 cm, higher oil removal efficiencies were obtained. The highest oil removal efficiencies were 95% and 35% for the batch and continuous operating modes, respectively.

@@ Up to now, the popular control modes for smart power integrated circuit (SPIC) are PWM and PFM.PWM bases on constant frequency variable width (CFVW) control pulse, whereas, PFM bases on constant width variable frequency (CWVF) control pulse. PWM converter has low efficiency with light loads and high amplitude harmonic. On the other hand,the control circuit and filter for PFM are much complex. This dissertation proposes a novel modulation mode named pulse skip modulation (PSM)for SPIC converter, which bases on constant width constant frequency (CWCF) control pulse. It is shown that PSM converter would improve its efficiency and suppress EMI. It also has quick response speed, good interfere rejection and strong robust. Furthermore, it is easy to realize PSM control circuit. The modulating theories of PSM are firstly studied in the world according to the author's investigation.

The electrical field-induced changes of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells permeabilization to tetraphenylphosphonium (TPP+) ions were studied using square-shaped, nanosecond duration high power electrical pulses. It was obtained that pulses having durations ranging from 10 ns to 60 ns, and generating electric field strengths up to 190 kV/cm significantly (up to 65 times) increase the absorption rate of TPP+ ions without any detectible influence on the yeast cell viability. The modelling of the TPP+ absorption process using a second order rate equation demonstrates that depending on the duration of the pulses, yeast cell clusters of different sizes are homogeniously permeabilized. It was concluded, that nanosecond pulse-induced permeabilization can be applied to increase the operational speed of whole cell biosensors.

NASA plans to orbit a permanently manned space station in the late 1990s, which requires development and assembly of a photovoltaic (PV) power source system to supply up to 75 kW of electrical power average during the orbital period. The electrical power requirements are to be met by a combination of PV source, storage, and control elements for the sun and eclipse periods. The authors discuss the application of power electronics and controls to manage the generation, storage, and distribution of power to meet the station loads, as well as the computer models used for analysis and simulation of the PV power system. The requirements for power source integrated controls to adjust storage charge power during the insolation period current limiting, breaker interrupt current values, and the electrical fault protection approach are defined. Based on these requirements, operating concepts have been defined which then become drivers for specific system and element design.

Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) energy conversion systems of the pulsed laser-supported detonation (LSD) wave, plasma MHD, and liquid-metal MHD (LMMHD) types are assessed for their potential as space-based laser-to-electrical power converters. These systems offer several advantages as energy converters relative to the present chemical, nuclear, and solar devices, including high conversion efficiency, simple design, high-temperature operation, high power density, and high reliability. Of these systems, the Brayton cycle liquid-metal MHD system appears to be the most attractive. The LMMHD technology base is well established for terrestrial applications, particularly with regard to the generator, mixer, and other system components. However, further research is required to extend this technology base to space applications and to establish the technology required to couple the laser energy into the system most efficiently. Continued research on each of the three system types is recommended.

High temperature superconducting (HTS) cables for use in electric ac power systems are under development around the world today. There are two main constructions under development: the room temperature dielectric design and the cryogenic dielectric design. However, theoretical studies have shown...

. In order to prevent ferrite core saturation, placing an effective air gap within the ferrite core is a key method to obtain optimum hybrid magnetic performance. Furthermore, a relatively large inductance at low loading current is an excellent way to minimze power loss in order to achieve high efficiency...

Full Text Available In order to generate X-rays from X-pinch, the peak current and current-rising time required are estimated to be 100 kA and 100 ns, respectively. To obtain these parameters, we developed a pulsed-power system, which consists of a parallelized pulse-forming network (PFN. The 20 PFN modules of the system were driven at a charging voltage of 20 kV by a thin copper wire of load resistance. The results showed that the current and current-rising time are 18 kA and 107 ns, respectively. The wire/plasma temperature is 6.9 eV. The pulsed-power system is expected to generate X-rays from X-pinch by the proposed system. This can be achieved by raising the voltage and increasing the number of PFN modules.

The performance of terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer (TOAD) has been studied by modelling the semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) in which the intraband effects had been taken into account.Numerical results are coincident with the experiment results. We interpret why there are three peaks in the switching window, which has never been reported before. In addition, we put forward the definition of the flatness of the switching window of TOAD for the first time By analysing the different phase of clockwise and counter clockwise signal pulse changed by SOA, appropriate peak power of control pulse and wavelength of signal and control pulse have been calculated in order to obtain large output power and flat switching window of TOAD.

This exploratory research program was initiated to investigate the potential of using pulsepower sources for powder consolidation, deposition and other High Energy High Rate Processing. The characteristics of the High Energy High Rate (1MJ/s) powder consolidation using megampere current pulses from a Homopolar Generator, have been defined. Molybdenum Alloy TZM, A Nickel based metallic glass, Copper graphite composites, and P/M Aluminum Alloy X7091 have been investigated. The powder consolidation process produced high densification rates. Density values of 80% to 99% could be obtained with sub second high temperature exposure. Specific energy input and applied pressure were controlling process parameters. Time Temperature Transformation (TTT) concepts underpin a fundamental understanding of pulsedpower processing. Deposition experiments were conducted using an exploding foil device (EFD) providing an armature feed to railgun mounted in a vacuum chamber. The material to be deposited - in plasma, gas, liquid or solid state - was accelerated electromagnetically in the railgun and deposited on a substrate.

Atlas is a pulsedpower machine designed for hydrodynamic experiments for the Los Alamos High Energy Density Physics Experimental program. It is presently under construction and should be operational in late 2000. Atlas will store 23 MJ at an erected voltage of 240 kV. This will produce a current of 30 MA into a static load and as much as 32 MA into a dynamic load. The current pulse will have a rise time of {approximately}5{micro}s and will produce a magnetic field driving the impactor liner of several hundred Tesla at the target radius of one to two centimeters. The collision can produce shock pressures of {approximately}15 megabars. Design of the pulsedpower system will be presented along with data obtained from the Atlas prototype Marx module.

In the paper the first results of a simplified code (FRESCO) for the evaluation of capital cost and cost of electricity of a D-T Tokamak fusion power plant are reported. For the scope of this paper, only the main assumptions and features of the code are described and its validation against the figures of the European PPCS plant models are presented. The code is here applied to compare the costs of a steady state and a pulsed fusion power plant.

switched with an SCR. The coil produces a 3 kG magnetic field with a 20mS critically damped waveform. This is sufficient to allow flux penetration...that the conventional thermionic cathode doses not provide acceptable electron emission for operation in the HPM power levels (> 100Mw). In this work...TECHNICAL REPORT AFOSR CONTRACT: FA9550-09-C-0127 “Non- Thermionic Cathode for High Power Long Pulse, Long Lifetime Magnetrons” Miles Collins Clark

High powered light emitting diodes (LED) are investigated for possible uses as light sources in flow diagnostics, in particular, as an alternative to laser-based illumination in particle imaging flow velocimetry. Recent developments in solid state illumination resulted in mass-produced LEDs that provide average radiant power in excess of 10 Watt. By operating these LEDs with short duration, pulsed currents that are considerably beyond their continuous current damage th...

High-powered light emitting diodes (LED) are investigated for possible uses as light sources in flow diagnostics, in particular, as an alternative to laser-based illumination in particle imaging flow velocimetry in side-scatter imaging arrangements. Recent developments in solid state illumination resulted in mass-produced LEDs that provide average radiant power in excess of 10 W. By operating these LEDs with short duration, pulsed currents that are considerably beyond their continuous c...

Full Text Available With scaling of Vt sub-threshold leakage power is increasing and expected to become significant part oftotal power consumption.In present work three new configurations of level shifters for low powerapplication in 0.35μm technology have been presented. The proposed circuits utilize the merits ofstacking technique with smaller leakage current and reduction in leakage power. Conventional levelshifter has been improved by addition of three NMOS transistors, which shows total power consumptionof 402.2264pW as compared to 0.49833nW with existing circuit. Single supply level shifter has beenmodified with addition of two NMOS transistors that gives total power consumption of 108.641pW ascompared to 31.06nW. Another circuit, contention mitigated level shifter (CMLS with three additionaltransistors shows total power consumption of 396.75pW as compared to 0.4937354nW. Three proposedcircuit’s shows better performance in terms of power consumption with a little conciliation in delay.Output level of 3.3V has been obtained with input pulse of 1.6V for all proposed circuits.

The history of wireless power transmission systems is reviewed and current and future applications and technology are discussed. Design constraints for terrestrial systems, airborne platforms, and space systems are presented.

A doubly-resonant optical cavity and its locking technique have been developed to achieve coherent enhancement of 402.5-MHz, 50-ps, megawatt peak power ultraviolet (355 nm) laser pulses operating at a 10- s/10-Hz burst mode.

The multi-institutional ARIES study has completed a series of three steady-state and two pulsed cost-optimized conceptual designs of commercial tokamak fusion power plants that vary the level of assumed advances in technology and physics. The cost benefits of various design options are compared quantitatively. Possible means to improve the economic competitiveness of fusion are suggested.

The Cygnus 1 machine was constructed and fielded at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to undergo pulsedpower component and reliability testing and for...result of the cooperative effort of Titan PSD, Sandia National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory , and Bechtel Nevada.

A detailed microstructural study of Stellite 6 coating deposited on a low carbon ferritic steel substrate using preplaced powder method and low power Nd:YAG pulse laser is performed. The grain structure and solidification texture of the coating are investigated by orientation imaging microscopy

Full Text Available New nanocrystalline materials for the applications in the power electronics systems are developed and tested.These materials are intended to be used in the magnetic circuits of switching-mode power supplies (SMPS. The aim was toachieve extremely low hysteresis and non-linearity in operating region resulting in increased efficiency and decreased weightand size whilst keeping low price of the high-power frequency converters for SMPS.

New nanocrystalline materials for the applications in the power electronics systems are developed and tested. These materials are intended to be used in the magnetic circuits of switching-mode power supplies (SMPS). The aim was to achieve extremely low hysteresis and non-linearity in operating region resulting in increased efficiency and decreased weight and size whilst keeping low price of the high-power frequency converters for SMPS.

The performance of a 1 MV pulsed high-power linear transformer driver accelerator were extensively investigated based on a numerical approach which utilizes both electromagnetic and Monte Carlo simulations. Particle-in-cell calculations were employed to examine the beam dynamics throughout the magnetically insulated transmission line which governs the coupling between the generator and the electron diode. Based on the information provided by the study of the beam dynamics, and using Monte Carlo methods, the main properties of the resulting x radiation were predicted. Good agreement was found between these simulations and experimental results. This work provides a detailed understanding of mechanisms affecting the performances of this type of high current, high-voltage pulsed accelerator, which are very promising for a growing number of applications.

Systems emitting ultra-wideband high power microwave (HP/UWB) pulses are developed for military and civilian applications. HP/UWB pulses typically have durations on the order of nanoseconds, rise times of picoseconds and amplitudes around 100 kV m(-1). This article reviews current research on biological effects from HP/UWB exposure. The different references were classified according to endpoints (cardiovascular system, central nervous system, behavior, genotoxicity, teratology …). The article also reviews the aspects of mechanisms of interactions and tissue damage as well as the numerical work that has been done for studying HP/UWB pulse propagation and pulse energy deposition inside biological tissues. The mechanisms proposed are the molecular conformation change, the modification of chemical reaction rates, membrane excitation and breakdown and direct electrical forces on cells or cell constituents, and the energy deposition. As regards the penetration of biological matter and the deposited energy, mainly computations were published. They have shown that the EM field inside the biological matter is strongly modified compared to the incident EM field and that the energy absorption for HP/UWB pulses occurs in the same way as for continuous waves. However, the energy carried by a HP/UWB pulse is very low and the deposited energy is low. The number of published studies dealing with the biological effects is small and only a few pointed out slight effects. It should be further noted that the animal populations used in the studies were not always large, the statistical analyses not always relevant and the teams involved in this research rather limited in number.

We report a study on the enhancement of linearly p-polarized output power in long pulse (2-20 ms) multimode operation of single rod Nd:YAG laser. Laser resonator was designed using a simple optical scheme with a tilted 90° quartz rotator and a re-entering feedback mirror placed at appropriate location. A p-polarized average output power of 215 W has been achieved with a slope efficiency of 4.5%, which is on higher side for a typical long pulse single rod Nd:YAG laser system. It has been verified experimentally that the depolarization losses can be reduced significantly from a value of ~34% to ~9%. Further, this scheme has resulted in a significant enhancement (more than 80%) of p-polarized output power as compared to placing a polarizer in the resonator. This long pulse p-polarized laser will be useful in various material processing applications and nonlinear frequency conversions.

Optimal control theory is considered as a methodology for pulse sequence design in NMR. It provides the flexibility for systematically imposing desirable constraints on spin system evolution and therefore has a wealth of applications. We have chosen an elementary example to illustrate the capabilities of the optimal control formalism: broadband, constant phase excitation which tolerates miscalibration of RF power and variations in RF homogeneity relevant for standard high-resolution probes. The chosen design criteria were transformation of Iz→ Ix over resonance offsets of ±20 kHz and RF variability of ±5%, with a pulse length of 2 ms. Simulations of the resulting pulse transform Iz→0.995 Ix over the target ranges in resonance offset and RF variability. Acceptably uniform excitation is obtained over a much larger range of RF variability (˜45%) than the strict design limits. The pulse performs well in simulations that include homonuclear and heteronuclear J-couplings. Experimental spectra obtained from 100% 13C-labeled lysine show only minimal coupling effects, in excellent agreement with the simulations. By increasing pulsepower and reducing pulse length, we demonstrate experimental excitation of 1H over ±32 kHz, with phase variations in the spectra 93% of maximum. Further improvements in broadband excitation by optimized pulses (BEBOP) may be possible by applying more sophisticated implementations of the optimal control formalism.

The Z Machine began operation in 1985 as the Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator 2 (PBFA-II). It was built as a high voltage driver to generate light ion beams in support of the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) Program. In 1996 PBFA-II was converted to a high current mode to investigate recent advances in imploding wire-array X-ray generation that Sandia scientists had made at the Saturn facility. Sandia planned to split the machine’s time between the high voltage ion beam mode and the high current X-ray generation mode, but the initial tests were so successful the machine was kept in the high current configuration. The machine was renamed the ‘Z Machine’ and scientists developed a number of experimental uses for the extremely high current outputs of Z, including dynamic material studies and the Isentropic Compression Experiments (ICE). In 2007 the Z Machine was refurbished to update machine components, many of which were original to the 1985 PBFA-II configuration. During the refurbishment project new technological improvements were incorporated nearly doubling the output power of the machine without increasing its overall size.

Nickel-iron, and especially Permalloy, plating has been knownand used for more than 40 years, but there are still severalproblems related to stability and maintenance that should beresolved. This paper presents a saccharine-free pulse reversalplating Permalloy electrolyte, which gives low......-stress deposits.We demonstrate selected MEMS applications of the electrolyte.The use of the strong complexing agent 5-sulfosalicylic acidallows for a photometric determination of the Fe3+-level in thebath and eliminate precipitates. This makes the electrolytesuitable as a Permalloy plating process used...

The propagation of high-power ultrashort light pulses involves intricate nonlinear spatio-temporal dynamics where various spectral-temporal field transformation effects are strongly coupled to the beam dynamics, which, in turn, varies from the leading to the trailing edge of the pulse. Analysis of this nonlinear dynamics, accompanied by spatial instabilities, beam breakup into multiple filaments, and unique phenomena leading to the generation of extremely short optical field waveforms, is equivalent in its computational complexity to a simulation of the time evolution of a few billion-dimensional physical system. Such an analysis requires exaflops of computational operations and is usually performed on high-performance supercomputers. Here, we present methods of physical modeling and numerical analysis that allow problems of this class to be solved on a laboratory computer boosted by a cluster of graphic accelerators. Exaflop computations performed with the application of these methods reveal new unique phenomena in the spatio-temporal dynamics of high-power ultrashort laser pulses. We demonstrate that unprecedentedly short light bullets can be generated as a part of that dynamics, providing optical field localization in both space and time through a delicate balance between dispersion and nonlinearity with simultaneous suppression of diffraction-induced beam divergence due to the joint effect of Kerr and ionization nonlinearities.

We present a new design of a compact, ultra fast, high resolution and high-powered, pulse generator for inductive load, using power MOSFET, dedicated gate driver and a digital signal controller. This design is an improved circuit of our old version controller. We demonstrate the performance of this pulse generator as a driver for a new generation of high-pressure supersonic pulsed valves.

The effects of high intensity light emissions, produced by a novel pulsedpower energization technique (PPET), on the survival of bacterial populations of verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli (serotype 0157:H7) and Listeria monocytogenes (serotype 4b) were investigated. Using this PPET approach, many megawatts (MW) of peak electrical power were dissipated in the light source in an extremely short energization time (about 1 microsecond). The light source was subjected to electric field levels greater than could be achieved under conventional continuous operation, which led to a greater production of the shorter bacteriocidal wavelengths of light. In the exposure experiments, pre-determined bacterial populations were spread onto the surface of Trypone Soya Yeast Extract Agar and were then treated to a series of light pulses (spectral range of 200-530 nm) with an exposure time ranging from 1 to 512 microseconds. While results showed that as few as 64 light pulses of 1 microsecond duration were required to reduce E. coli 0157:H7 populations by 99.9% and Listeria populations by 99%, the greater the number of light pulses the larger the reduction in cell numbers (P pulsed light emissions can significantly reduce populations of E. coli 0157:H7 and L. monocytogenes on exposed surfaces with exposure times which are 4-6 orders of magnitude lower than those required using continuous u.v. light sources.

Excitation of terahertz radiation by the interaction of an ultra-short laser pulse and the fields of a miniature, corrugated plasma waveguide is considered. Plasma structures of this type have been realized experimentally and they can support electromagnetic (EM) channel modes with properties that allow for radiation generation. In particular, the mode have subluminal field components, thus allowing phase matching between the generated THz modes and the ponderomotive potential of the laser pulse. Theoretical analysis and full format PIC simulations are conducted. We find THz generated by this slow wave phase matching mechanism is characterized by lateral emission and a coherent, narrow band, tunable spectrum with relatively high power and conversion efficiency. We investigated two different types of channels, and a range of realistic laser pulses and plasma profile parameters are considered with the goal of increasing the conversion of optical energy to THz radiation. We find high laser intensities strongly modify the THz spectrum by exciting higher order channel modes. Enhancement of a specific channel mode can be realized by using an optimum pulse duration and plasma density. As an example, a fixed drive pulse (0.55 J) with spot size of 15 µm and pulse duration of 15 fs excites 37.8 mJ of THz radiation in a 1.5 cm corrugated plasma waveguide with on axis average density of 1.4×1018cm-3, conversion efficiency exceeding 8% is achieved.

We report a stable highly-integrated high power picosecond thulium-doped all-fiber MOPA system without using conventional chirped pulse amplification technique. The master oscillator was passively mode-locked by a SESAM to generate average power of 15 mW at a fundamental repetition rate of 103 MHz in a short linear cavity, and a uniform narrow bandwidth FBG is employed to stabilize the passively mode-locked laser operation. Two-stage double-clad thulium-doped all-fiber amplifiers were used directly to boost average power to 20.7 W. The laser center wavelength was 1962.8 nm and the pulse width was 18 ps. The single pulse energy and peak-power after the amplication were 200 nJ and 11.2 kW respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power ever reported for a picosecond thulium-doped all-fiber MOPA system.

The power prior has been widely used in many applications covering a large number of disciplines. The power prior is intended to be an informative prior constructed from historical data. It has been used in clinical trials, genetics, health care, psychology, environmental health, engineering, economics, and business. It has also been applied for a wide variety of models and settings, both in the experimental design and analysis contexts. In this review article, we give an A-to-Z exposition of the power prior and its applications to date. We review its theoretical properties, variations in its formulation, statistical contexts for which it has been used, applications, and its advantages over other informative priors. We review models for which it has been used, including generalized linear models, survival models, and random effects models. Statistical areas where the power prior has been used include model selection, experimental design, hierarchical modeling, and conjugate priors. Frequentist properties of power priors in posterior inference are established, and a simulation study is conducted to further examine the empirical performance of the posterior estimates with power priors. Real data analyses are given illustrating the power prior as well as the use of the power prior in the Bayesian design of clinical trials.

We demonstrated robust and bend insensitive fiber delivery of high power laser with diffraction limited beam quality for two different kinds of hollow core band gap fibers. The light source for this experiment consists of ytterbium-doped double clad fiber aeroGAIN-ROD-PM85 in a high power amplifier setup. It provided 22ps pulses with a maximum average power of 95W, 40MHz repetition rate at 1032nm (~2.4μJ pulse energy), with M2 bend sensitivity. The fibers were coiled on 8 centimeters radius spools and even lower bending radii were present. In addition, stimulated rotational Raman scattering arising from nitrogen molecules was measured through a 42m long 19 cell hollow core fiber.

Hollow-core photonic bandgap fibers (PBG) offer the opportunity to suppress highly the optical absorption and nonlinearities of their constituent materials, which makes them viable candidates for transmitting high-peak powerpulses. We report the fabrication and characterization of polymer-composite PBG fibers in a novel materials system, polycarbonate and arsenic sulfide glass. Propagation losses for the 60 microm-core fibers are less than 2dB/m, a 52x improvement over previous 1D-PBG fibers at this wavelength. Through preferential coupling the fiber is capable of operating with over 97% the fiber's power output in the fundamental (HE(11)) mode. The fiber transmitted pulses with peak powers of 11.4 MW before failure.

Laser fields with peak powers P well above the critical power of self-focusing P cr are intrinsically unstable with respect to modulation instabilities, breaking up into multiple filaments as a part of a quintessentially three-dimensional nonlinear beam dynamics. Here, however, we show that—even for P \\gg P cr—the spatiotemporal field evolution can stay effectively one-dimensional. In this regime, observed as an asymptotic case of large diffraction lengths, the laser field can undergo a rich diversity of pulse transformation scenarios, including, most notably, pulse self-compression to subcycle field waveforms with very high peak powers, while remaining decoupled, within a limited propagation length, from beam dynamics.

@@ A novel nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) with a nonreciprocal phase shift bias (NPSB), called power equalization NOLM (PE-NOLM), is proposed for reducing the power fluctuation of pulse trains. NPSB provides part of the nonreciprocal phase difference so that the required input power is reduced, and nonsymmetrical coupling ratio of coupler can adjust the transmission curve to improve the equalization range. It has been shown theoretically that compared with earlier PE-NOLM, about 1.6 dB of equalization power reduction and about 2.2 dB of equalization range enhancement could be achieved. Experiments have demonstrated that the output power fluctuation is reduced to less than 0.4 dB, while the required input peak power range is 4.5 dBm (15.6-20.1 dBm).

Significant advances in the field of optimal control have been made over the past few decades. These advances have been well documented in numerous fine publications, and have motivated a number of innovations in electric power system engineering, but they have not yet been collected in book form. Our purpose in writing this book is to provide a description of some of the applications of optimal control techniques to practical power system problems. The book is designed for advanced undergraduate courses in electric power systems, as well as graduate courses in electrical engineering, applied mathematics, and industrial engineering. It is also intended as a self-study aid for practicing personnel involved in the planning and operation of electric power systems for utilities, manufacturers, and consulting and government regulatory agencies. The book consists of seven chapters. It begins with an introductory chapter that briefly reviews the history of optimal control and its power system applications and also p...

This article presents a novel actuator and a new concept for a release mechanism that are especially useful in applications that require fast motion of large masses over long distances. The actuator is based on ultra-fast pulse heating of NiTi wires, which provide a unique combination of large work per volume, short response time and enhanced energy efficiency. The release mechanism utilizes the fast and powerful actuator to form conditions in which the latch (safety pin) moves faster than the deployed device. As a result, the contact between these two masses is disconnected and the resulting friction forces are decreased to approximately zero. The actuator and release mechanism address the two major drawbacks of conventional shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators: slow actuation time and low energy efficiency. Using a dedicated setup, the experimental results validate the disconnection between the masses and map the effects of several variables on the performance of the actuator and release mechanism. In particular, we map the energetic efficiency and find the optimal operating conditions for a successful release using a minimal amount of input energy. At the optimal conditions, the actuator response time and the consumed input energy are smaller by an order of magnitude with respect to performances of previous SMA-based release mechanisms with comparable requirements.

The electrical power converter group at CERN is responsible for the design of fast-pulsedpower converters. These generate a flat-top pulse of the order of a few milliseconds. Control of these power converters is orchestrated by an embedded computer, known as the Function Generator/Controller (FGC). The FGC is the main component in the so-called RegFGC3 chassis, which also houses a variety of purpose-built cards. Ensuring the generation of the pulse at a precise moment, typically when the beam passes, is paramount to the correct behaviour of the accelerator. To that end, the timing distribution and posterior handling by the FGC must be well defined. Also important is the ability to provide operational feedback, and to configure the FGC, the converter, and the pulse characteristics. This paper presents an overview of the system architecture as well as the results obtained during the commissioning of this control solution in CERN’s new Linac4.

A novel nanosecond pulsedpower unit was developed for plasma treatment of wastewater, based on the theory of magnetic pulse compression and semiconductor opening switch （SOS）. The peak value, rise time and pulse duration of the output voltage were observed to be -51 kV, 60 ns and 120 ns, respectively. The concentrations of .OH generated by the novel nanosecond pulsed plasma power were determined using the method of high-performance liquid chromatography （HPLC）. The results showed that the concentrations of .OH increased with the increase in peak voltage, and the generation rates of .OH were 4.1 ×10^-10 mol/s, 5.7× 10^-10 mol/s, and 7.7× 10^-10 mol/s at 30 kV, 35 kV, and 40 kV, respectively. The efficiency of OH generation was found to be independent of the input parameters for applied power, with an average value of 3.23×10^-12 mol/J obtained.

This study examines the interaction of the electromagnetic pulse from a high altitude nuclear burst with commercial nuclear power plant systems. The potential vulnerability of systems required for safe shutdown of a specific nuclear power plant are explored. EMP signal coupling, induced plant response and component damage thresholds are established using techniques developed over several decades under Defense Nuclear Agency sponsorship. A limited test program was conducted to verify the coupling analysis technique as applied to a nuclear power plant. The results are extended, insofar as possible, to other nuclear plants.

In the recently commissioned superconducting RF cavity test facility at Fermilab (SCTF), a 325 MHz, {beta} = 0.22 superconducting single-spoke resonator (SSR1) has been tested for the first time with its input power coupler. Previously, this cavity had been tested CW with a low power, high Q{sub ext} test coupler; first as a bare cavity in the Fermilab Vertical Test Stand and then fully dressed in the SCTF. For the tests described here, the design input coupler with Q{sub ext} {approx} 10{sup 6} was used. Pulsedpower was provided by a Toshiba E3740A 2.5 MW klystron.

We simulate and elucidate the self-channeling of high-power 10 μ m infrared pulses in atomic gases. The major new result is that the peak intensity can remain remarkably stable over many Rayleigh ranges. This arises from the balance between the self-focusing, diffraction, and defocusing caused by the excitation induced dephasing due to many-body Coulomb effects that enhance the low-intensity plasma densities. This new paradigm removes the Rayleigh range limit for sources in the 8 - 12 μ m atmospheric transmission window and enables transport of individual multi-TW pulses over multiple kilometer ranges.

An experimental series was performed at a pulsed-power 2.2 MeV flash radiography machine to determine the lower limits of its mass sensitivity. This machine uses a rod-pinch diode with accelerating potential of 2.2 MeV and 50 ns pulse duration. Tungsten, aluminum, and titanium rod anodes were used to tune the emitted bremsstrahlung spectrum; as well as aluminum and beryllium filter materials. Analysis of thin tantalum foils shows a mass sensitivity as low as 300 μg/cm2. This is a factor of 5 better than previous measurements.

To meet the growing demands of on-board applications such as cooling meteorological payloads and the satellite operational constraints like power, lower mass, reduced size and redundancy; a Pulse Tube Cryocooler (PTC) is designed by arriving at an operating frequency of 100 Hz and Helium gas pressure of 35 bar based on insights obtained from combination of phasor diagram, pulse tube and regenerator geometries with overall system mass of ≤ 2.0 kg. High frequency operation would allow reducing the size and mass of pressure wave modulator for a given input power. High Frequency also helps in reducing the volume of regenerator for a given cooling power, which increases the power density and leads to faster cool down. A component level modelling of the regenerator for optimising length and diameter for maximum Coefficient of Performance (COP) is carried out using REGEN3.3. The overall system level modelling of PTC is carried out using 1-D software SAGE. The cold end mass flow rate of the optimised regenerator is taken as reference for the system modelling. The performance achieved in REGEN3.3 is 2.15 W of net heat lift against the performance of 1.02 W of net heat lift at 80 K in SAGE.

This paper describes the operation principles and limits of power semiconductors. In addition, operation mechanisms of the new pulsepower devices, SOS (Semiconductor Opening Switch) and dynistors, are explained qualitatively. The fastest operating power device is the series connection of comparatively low-voltage devices. For large-current operation, a uniformly operating pin-diode structure device is essential. An SOS is constructed from dozens of medium voltage (about 3kV) special hard-recovery diodes. This can shut off 2kA current at 10kV with in 10ns. The dynistor has n+pnp+ four layers and two electrodes. Serial-connected dynistors have the potential to replace thyratrons. These new devices can endure over 10 kA/cm2 at much higher voltage than their static breakdown values in the repetitive use more than 1011 times.

The present status of silver oxide-zinc technology and applications has been described by Karpinski et al. [A.P. Karpinski, B. Makovetski, S.J. Russell, J.R. Serenyi, D.C. Williams, Silver-Zinc: status of technology and applications, Journal of Power Sources, 80 (1999) 53-60], where the silver-zinc couple is still the preferred choice where high specific energy/energy density, coupled with high specific power/power density are important for high-rate, weight or size/configuration sensitive applications. Perhaps the silver oxide cathode can be considered one of the most versatile electrode materials. When coupled with other anodes and corresponding electrolyte management system, the silver electrode provides for a wide array of electrochemical systems that can be tailored to meet the most demanding, high power requirements. Besides zinc, the most notable include cadmium, iron, metal hydride, and hydrogen electrode for secondary systems, while primary systems include lithium and aluminum. Alloys including silver are also available, such as silver chloride, which when coupled with magnesium or aluminum are primarily used in many seawater applications. The selection and use of these couples is normally the result of a trade-off of many factors. These include performance, safety, risk, reliability, and cost. When high power is required, silver oxide-zinc, silver oxide-aluminum, and silver oxide-lithium are the most energetic. For moderate performance (i.e., lower power), silver oxide-zinc or silver-cadmium would be the system of choice. This paper summarizes the suitability of the silver-based couples, with an emphasis on the silver-zinc system, as primary or rechargeable power sources for high energy/powerapplications.

With the discovery of the high temperature superconductors the prospect to find widespread applications of these conductors also in electric powerapplications grew very fast. The advantages that could be anticipated was reduced losses, reduced weight and volume plus less environmental impact. During the last five-six years techniques have been developed to produce long lengths of flexible conductors that can be used in cables or windings. Most manufacturers of high temperature superconductors concentrated on traditional DC applications. However, much larger markets will open up when good enough AC conductors become available for powerapplications. In 1994 ABB started a project aiming at a 630 kVA three-phase power transformer with windings made of high temperature superconductors. This transformer was taken into operation in the spring of 1997 and operated perfectly for one year. I will discuss the performance and price demands the high temperature superconductors have to fulfill to be useful in powerapplications and review the above mentioned transformer project and also give some insight in a running project with the goal to design, build and put in operation a 10 MVA power transformer with high temperature superconductors with low AC-losses in the windings.

While the operation of modulator to the pulsed transformer of klystron-5045, current through the primary winding of the pulse transformer (PT) continues to flow even upon the end of the klystron voltage operating pulse. This is determined by an energy stored in magnetizing inductance. The prolongation of magnetizing current passing process simultaneously with the premature choking of thyratron can cause high voltage of inverse polarity at the klystron, which cause the destruction of the cathode. We have considered the possibility of shortening time of magnetizing current passage for the charge of reasonable choice of clipper circuit parameters. The behavior of clipper circuit was studied in modulators used for the VEPP-5 (BINP, Russia) preinjector klystron power supply. The optimum operation run of the circuit was selected and its design features are described.

A compact L-band sealed-tube magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator (MILO) has been developed that does not require bulky external vacuum pump for repetitive operations. This device with a ceramic insulated vacuum interface, a carbon fiber array cathode, and non-evaporable getters has a base vacuum pressure in the low 10-6 Pa range. A dynamic 3-D Monte-Carlo model for the molecular flow movement and collision was setup for the MILO chamber. The pulse desorption, gas evolution, and pressure distribution were exactly simulated. In the 5 Hz repetition rate experiments, using a 600 kV diode voltage and 48 kA beam current, the average radiated microwave power for 25 shots is about 3.4 GW in 45 ns pulse duration. The maximum equilibrium pressure is below 4.0 × 10-2 Pa, and no pulse shortening limitations are observed during the repetitive test in the sealed-tube condition.

Focused Beams from high-power lasers have been used to command trigger gas switches in pulsepower accelerators for more than two decades. This Laboratory-Directed Research and Development project was aimed at determining whether high power lasers could also command trigger water switches on high-power accelerators. In initial work, we determined that focused light from three harmonics of a small pulsed Nd:YAG laser at 1064 nm, 532 nm, and 355 nm could be used to form breakdown arcs in water, with the lowest breakdown thresholds of 110 J/cm{sup 2} or 14 GW/cm{sup 2} at 532 nm in the green. In laboratory-scale laser triggering experiments with a 170-kV pulse-charged water switch with a 3-mm anode-cathode gap, we demonstrated that {approx}90 mJ of green laser energy could trigger the gap with a 1-{sigma} jitter of less than 2ns, a factor of 10 improvement over the jitter of the switch in its self breaking mode. In the laboratory-scale experiments we developed optical techniques utilizing polarization rotation of a probe laser beam to measure current in switch channels and electric field enhancements near streamer heads. In the final year of the project, we constructed a pulse-power facility to allow us to test laser triggering of water switches from 0.6- MV to 2.0 MV. Triggering experiments on this facility using an axicon lens for focusing the laser and a switch with a 740 kV self-break voltage produced consistent laser triggering with a {+-} 16-ns 1-{sigma} jitter, a significant improvement over the {+-} 24-ns jitter in the self-breaking mode.

We report an all-fiber two-stage high powerpulsed amplifier,seeded with a 1550nm,1 kHz repetition rate rectangular pulse,and based on Er/Yb co-doped double clad fiber.All the characteristics are measured in the experiment.The maxima/slope efficiency is 22.56%,which is the highest we know of at such a low repetition rate,and the maximal output signal power is 1W.The various factors that affect the pulsed amplifier performance are analyzed.A high output power while keeping high power conversion efficiency can be obtained with careful selection of the input power,pump power and repetition rate.The experimental results show that the crucial parameters should be optimized when designing all-fiber pulsed amplifiers.

Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) in nonlinear crystals has the potential to produce extremes of peak and average power but is limited either in energy by crystal growth issues or in average power by crystal thermo-optic characteristics. Recently, large (7.5 cm diameter x 25 cm length) crystals of yttrium calcium oxyborate (YCOB) have been grown and utilized for high-average-power second-harmonic generation. Further, YCOB has the necessary thermo-optic properties required for scaling OPCPA systems to high peak and average power operation for wavelengths near 1 microm. We report what is believed to be the first use of YCOB for OPCPA. Scalability to higher peak and average power is addressed.

A single nuclear detonation several hundred kilometers above the central United States will subject much of the nation to a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (BENT). This pulse consists of an intense steep-front, short-duration transient electromagnetic field, followed by a geomagnetic disturbance with tens of seconds duration. This latter environment is referred to as the magnetohydrodynamic electromagnetic pulse (NMENT). Both the early-time transient and the geomagnetic disturbance could impact the operation of the nation's power systems. Since 1983, the US Department of Energy has been actively pursuing a research program to assess the potential impacts of one or more BENT events on the nation's electric energy supply. This report summarizes the results of that program and provides recommendations for enhancing power system reliability under HENT conditions. A nominal HENP environment suitable for assessing geographically large systems was developed during the program and is briefly described in this report. This environment was used to provide a realistic indication of BEMP impacts on electric power systems. It was found that a single high-altitude burst, which could significantly disturb the geomagnetic field, may cause the interconnected power network to break up into utility islands with massive power failures in some areas. However, permanent damage would be isolated, and restoration should be possible within a few hours. Multiple bursts would likely increase the blackout areas, component failures, and restoration time. However, a long-term blackout of many months is unlikely because major power system components, such as transformers, are not likely to be damaged by the nominal HEND environment. Moreover, power system reliability, under both HENT and normal operating conditions, can be enhanced by simple, and often low cost, modifications to current utility practices.

A serious consideration of laser power beaming for satellite applications appears to have grown out of a NASA mission analysis for transmitting power to lunar bases during the two week dark period. System analyses showed that laser power beaming to the moon in conjunction with efficient, large area solar cell collection panels, were an attractive alternative to other schemes such as battery storage and nuclear generators, largely because of the high space transportation costs. The primary difficulty with this scheme is the need for very high average power visible lasers. One system study indicated that lasers in excess of 10 MW at a wavelength of approximately 850 nm were required. Although such lasers systems have received much attention for military applications, their realization is still a long term goal.

The design of friendly user tools for power electronics applications is a hot topic among the researchers all over the world. In fact, the digital signal processors programming is a hard task which requires a deep knowledge of the specific hardware platform where the user control program is implemented. In this paper, a user interface for programming digital signal processors (DSP) to control a power electronic converter is presented. The proposed program, called jscomm, is currently used as ...

Ultra-short pulse lasers are dominated by solid-state technology, which typically operates in the near-infrared. Efforts to extend this technology to longer wavelengths are meeting with some success, but the trend remains that longer wavelengths correlate with greatly reduced power. The carbon dioxide (CO2) laser is capable of delivering high energy, 10 micron wavelength pulses, but the gain structure makes operating in the ultra-short pulse regime difficult. The Naval Research Laboratory and Air Force Research Laboratory are developing a novel CO2 laser designed to deliver ~1 Joule, ~1 picosecond pulses, from a compact gain volume (~2x2x80 cm). The design is based on injection seeding an unstable resonator, in order to achieve high energy extraction efficiency, and to take advantage of power broadening. The unstable resonator is seeded by a solid state front end, pumped by a custom built titanium sapphire laser matched to the CO2 laser bandwidth. In order to access a broader range of mid infrared wavelengths using CO2 lasers, one must consider nonlinear frequency multiplication, which is non-trivial due to the bandwidth of the 10 micron radiation.

High temperature superconducting pulsedpower transformer (HTSPPT) provides an efficient method for inductive energy storage and current multiplication. The primary inductor of HTSPPT used for energy storage is made of high temperature superconducting coils, and the secondary inductor used for current pulse generation is made of normal conductor coils. In the initial circuit, the secondary inductor generates current pulse by switching out the coupled primary superconducting inductor. However, during the switching period, the leakage flux caused by imperfect coupling and the sudden change in primary current induce a voltage across the opening switch which exceeds the affordability of modern solid-state switches. In previous studies, a half-cycle oscillatory discharge circuit is proposed to mitigate these problems by using a capacitor to recapture the energy in the leakage flux and to slow down the turnoff of current in the primary. However, there are still some problems should be settled. For example, the output pulse cannot be adjusted, the residual energy cannot be recovered and the capacitor branch circuit may have an impact on the charging process. In the paper, a modified discharge circuit topology is introduced to solve these problems. A multi-module system comprising of several HTSPPTs charging in series connection and discharging in parallel is also designed and simulated. This system can be used to power an electromagnetic emission device.

Candidate dry-wall materials for the reactor chambers of future laser-driven Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) power plants have been exposed to ion pulses from RHEPP-1, located at Sandia National Laboratories. These pulses simulate the MeV-level ion pulses with fluences of up to 20 J/cm 2 that can be expected to impinge on the first wall of such future plants. Various forms of tungsten and tungsten alloy were subjected to up to 1600 pulses, usually while being heated to 600 °C. Other metals were exposed as well. Thresholds for roughening and material removal, and evolution of surface morphology were measured and compared with code predictions for materials response. Powder-metallurgy (PM) tungsten is observed to undergo surface roughening and subsurface crack formation that evolves over hundreds of pulses, and which can occur both below and above the melt threshold. This roughening is worse than for other metals, and worse than for either tungsten alloyed with rhenium (W25Re), or for CVD and single-crystal forms of tungsten. Carbon, particularly the form used in composite material, appears to suffer material loss well below its sublimation point. Some engineered materials were also investigated. It appears that some modification to PM tungsten is required for its successful use in a reactor environment.

This book covers the basics, realization and materials for high power laser systems and high power radiation interaction with matter. The physical and technical fundamentals of high intensity laser optics and adaptive optics and the related physical processes in high intensity laser systems are explained. A main question discussed is: What is power optics? In what way is it different from ordinary optics widely used in cameras, motion-picture projectors, i.e., for everyday use? An undesirable consequence of the thermal deformation of optical elements and surfaces was discovered during studies of the interaction with powerful incident laser radiation. The requirements to the fabrication, performance and quality of optical elements employed within systems for most practical applications are also covered. The high-power laser performance is generally governed by the following: (i) the absorption of incident optical radiation (governed primarily by various absorption mechanisms), (ii) followed by a temperature ...

Specifics of designing a pulsed arc welding power supply device are presented in the paper. Electronic components for managing large current was analyzed. Strengths and shortcomings of power supply circuits based on thyristor, bipolar transistor and MOSFET are outlined. As a base unit for pulsed arc welding was chosen MOSFET transistor, which is easy to manage. Measures to protect a transistor are given. As for the transistor control device is a microcontroller Arduino which has a low cost and adequate performance of the work. Bead transfer principle is to change the voltage on the arc in the formation of beads on the wire end. Microcontroller controls transistor when the arc voltage reaches the threshold voltage. Thus there is a separation and transfer of beads without splashing. Control strategies tested on a real device and presented. The error in the operation of the device is less than 25 us, it can be used controlling drop transfer at high frequencies (up to 1300 Hz).

High-powered light emitting diodes (LED) are investigated for possible uses as light sources in flow diagnostics, in particular, as an alternative to laser-based illumination in particle imaging flow velocimetry in side-scatter imaging arrangements. Recent developments in solid state illumination resulted in mass-produced LEDs that provide average radiant power in excess of 10 W. By operating these LEDs with short duration, pulsed currents that are considerably beyond their continuous current damage threshold, light pulses can be generated that are sufficient to illuminate and image micron-sized particles in flow velocimetry. Time-resolved PIV measurements in water at a framing rate of 2kHz are presented. The feasibility of LED-based PIV measurements in air is also demonstrated.

Laser piercing is one of the inevitable requirements of laser profile cutting process and it has a direct bearing on the quality of the laser cut profiles. We have developed a novel power ramped pulsed mode (PRPM) laser piercing technique to produce much finer pierced holes and to achieve a better control on the process parameters compared to the existing methodology based on normal pulsed mode (NPM). Experiments were carried out with both PRPM and NPM laser piercing on 1.5-mm-thick mild steel using an in-house developed high-power transverse flow continuous wave (CW)-CO 2 laser. Significant improvements in the spatter, circularity of the pierced hole and reproducibility were achieved through the PRPM technique. We studied, in detail, the dynamics of processes involved in PRPM laser piercing and compared that with those of the NPM piercing.

The U.S. power industry is undertaking several initiatives that will improve the operations of the electric power grid. One of those is the implementation of wide-area measurements using phasor measurement units to dynamically monitor the operations and status of the network and provide advanced situational awareness and stability assessment. The overviews of synchrophasors and stability analyses in this report are intended to present the potential future applications of synchrophasors for power system operations under high penetrations of wind and other renewable energy sources.

We present robust radio frequency (rf) pulses that tolerate a factor of six inhomogeneity in the B1 field, significantly enhancing the potential of toroid cavity resonators for NMR spectroscopic applications. Both point-to-point (PP) and unitary rotation (UR) pulses were optimized for excitation, inversion, and refocusing using the gradient ascent pulse engineering (GRAPE) algorithm based on optimal control theory. In addition, the optimized parameterization (OP) algorithm applied to the adiabatic BIR-4 UR pulse scheme enabled ultra-short (50 microsec) pulses with acceptable performance compared to standard implementations. OP also discovered a new class of non-adiabatic pulse shapes with improved performance within the BIR-4 framework. However, none of the OP-BIR4 pulses are competitive with the more generally optimized UR pulses. The advantages of the new pulses are demonstrated in simulations and experiments. In particular, the DQF COSY result presented here represents the first implementation of 2D NMR sp...

In the past decades, many efforts have been made to replace mechanical tools in oral applications by various laser systems. The reasons therefore are manifold: i) Friction causes high temperatures damaging adjacent tissue. ii) Smear layers and rough surfaces are produced. iii) Size and shape of traditional tools are often unsuitable for geometrically complicated incisions and for minimum invasive treatment. iv) Mechanical damage of the remaining tissue occurs. v) Online diagnosis for feedback is not available. Different laser systems in the Âµs and sub-&mrgs-pulse regime, among them Erbium lasers, have been tested in the hope to overcome the mentioned drawbacks and, to some extent, they represent the current state of the art with respect to commercial and hence practical application. In the present work the applicability of scanned ultrashort pulse lasers (USPLs) for biological hard tissue as well as dental restoration material removal was tested. It is shown that cavities with features superior to mechanically treated or Erbium laser ablated cavities can be generated if appropriate scan algorithms and optimum laser parameters are matched. Smooth cavity rims, no microcracks, melting or carbonisation and precise geometry are the advantages of scanned USLP ablation. For bone treatment better healing conditions are expected as the natural structure remains unaffected by the preparation procedure. The novelty of this work is represented by a comprehensive compilation of various experimental results intended to assess the performance of USPLs. In this context, various pulse durations in the picosecond and femtosecond regime were applied to dental and bone tissue as well as dental restoration materials which is considered to be indispensable for a complete assessment. Parameters like ablation rates describing the efficiency of the ablation process, and ablation thresholds were determined - some of them for the first time - and compared to the corresponding Erbium

26-mm- diameter conventional propellant gun. A plasma armature is assumed for the railgun. The capacitor -based, pulsedpower supply (PPS), located...size). This report examines a notional railgun injected by a conventional gun with a projectile having an initial velocity. The capacitor -based...Plastic) is a tough and rubbery polypropylene -based plastic and was used to fabricate the obturator/sabot. The forward section of the sabot was

Low-density, microcellular foams prepared from the natural polymers agar and gelatin have been developed for pulsed-power physics experiments. Numerous experiments were supported with foams having densities at or below 10 mg/cm{sup 3}. For some of the experiments, the agar/gelatin foam was uniformly doped with metallic elements using soluble salts. Depending on the method of preparation, cell sizes were typically below 10 microns and for one process were below 1.0 micron.

We report a widely tunable, narrow linewidth, pulsed Ti:sapphire laser pumped by an all-solid-state Q-switched intra-cavity frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser. By using four dense Bint glass prisms as intra-cavity dispersive elements, the output wavelength can be continuously tuned over 675-970 nm and the spectral linewidth is shortened to 0.5nm. The maximum output power of 6.65 W at 780 nm is obtained under 23.4 Wpump power with repetition rate of 5.5 kHz; corresponding to an conversion efficiency of 28.4%. Due to the gain-switching characteristics of the Ti:sapphire laser, the output pulse duration is as short as 17.6ns.%@@ We report a widely tunable,narrow linewidth,pulsed Th:sapphire laser pumped by an all-solid-state Q-switched intra-cavity frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser.By using four dense flint glass prisms as intra-cavity dispersive elements,the output wavelength can be continuously tuned over 675-970nm and the spectral linewidth is shortened to 0.5 nm.The maximum output power of 6.65 W at 780 run is obtained under 23.4 W pump power with repetition rate of 5.5 kHz,corresponding to an conversion efficiency of 28.4%.Due to the gain-switching characteristics of the Ti:sapphire laser,the output pulse duration is as short as 17.6ns.

A technique to make reliable high-current, high-coulomb electrical contact was developed for transmitting power into railguns. The method uses spring loaded removable connectors that are installed independently from the launcher. The simple rod-type design and absence of fastener holes allow maximum utilization of material mechanical properties. Repeated experiments with 9.5-mm diameter connectors demonstrated reliable pulsed charge transfer of 200 coulombs at currents of over 400kA. 20 refs.

The UV water disinfection for example needs efficient lamps with high power densities. Xe2^* dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) with phosphor coating can be used due to plasma efficiencies up to 60 % at pulsed electrical power densities of 0.04 W/cm^2 [1]. The power density can be increased by pressure or (operation) frequency. However, the plasma efficiency declines with frequency. We present measurements of the radiant flux for pulsed DBDs made of fused silica as function of pressure and frequency. By calculation of optical losses the plasma efficiency is estimated to be 52 % at 0.07 W/cm^2 but decreases to 34 % at 0.8 W/cm^2. The maximum frequency is pressure dependent and limited due to change-over from homogeneous into filamented mode. In comparison we measured the gas gap voltage and internal plasma current of a pulsed planar DBD for general lighting [2]. This comparison makes it possible to explain the frequency dependence of plasma efficiency and radiant flux. Due to the high frequency the remaining charge density is increased and the discharge becomes a glow discharge. For that reason the typical peak current during ignition drops and explains the declined efficiency by glow phase losses. [4pt] [1] Beleznai, S., et al., JPhysD, 41 (2008) [0pt] [2] Paravia, M., et al., GEC, Dallas, 2008

We investigated a plasma excited by high powerpulsed microwaves (MWs) (pulse duration 2.5 {mu}s, repetition rate 400 Hz, peak power 10{sup 5} W, frequency 9.4 GHz) in nitrogen at reduced pressure (pressure range 10-2000 Pa) with the aim of a better understanding of such types of discharge. The construction of the experimental device suppresses the plasma-wall interactions and therefore the volume processes are predominant. To obtain the temporal evolution of the electron density we used two MW interferometers at frequencies of 15 and 35 GHz with dielectric rod waveguides which gives them the capability of localized measurements. We estimated the effective collision frequency from the absorption of a measurement beam. Time resolved optical emission spectroscopy of the 1st negative system and the 2nd positive system was carried out, too. Due to a high power input the discharge dynamics was fast and the steady state was typically reached in 1 {mu}s. We found that the effective collision frequency has the same temporal behaviour as the 2nd positive system of N{sub 2}, including a characteristic maximum at the beginning of the pulse.

In this paper the performances of an electromagnetic launch system constituted by an arc driven railgun powered by a MHD generator are investigated. A small bore plasma driven railgun for fusion fuel pellet injection is examined considering as pulsepower source a MHD generator having characteristics taken from operating devices. The analysis of the railgun and generator has been carried out by means of a lumped parameter equivalent network model that takes into account drag force and ablation effects and allowing the evaluation of the main electrical and thermodynamic quantity distributions of the plasma arc.

Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) for SO2 removal from indoor air is investigated.In order to improve the removal efficiency,two novel methods are combined in this paper,namely by applying a pulsed driving voltage with nanosecond rising time and applying a magnetic field.For SO2 removal efficiency,different matches of electric field and magnetic field are discussed.And nanosecond rising edge pulsedpower supply and microsecond rising edge pulsedpower supply are compared.It can be concluded that a pulsed DBD with nanosecond rising edge should be adopted,and electrical field and magnetic field should be applied in an appropriate match.

This updated version of Practical Sonochemistry for advanced students and teachers in chemistry and chemical engineering conveys the increasing growth in applications and equipment to power ultrasound. Equipment now on the market offers a wider range of frequencies with more reproducible experimentation and a variety of scale-up systems. The book provides detailed descriptions of newer ultrasonic equipment and its applications, and practical laboratory uses of ultrasound technology for industrial scale performance.Modern exercises familiarise readers with recent sonochemical operations

An extensive programme of research has been conducted for scintillation liquids and plastics capable of neutron-gamma discrimination for deployment in future passive and active Homeland Security systems to provide protection against radiological and nuclear threats. The more established detection materials such as EJ-301 and EJ-309 are compared with novel materials such as EJ-299-33 and p-terphenyl. This research also explores the benefits that can be gained from improvements in the analogue-to-digital sampling rate and sample bit resolution. Results are presented on the Pulse Shape Discrimination performance of various detector and data acquisition combinations and how optimum configurations from these studies have been developed into field-ready detector arrays. Early results from application-specific experimental configurations of multi-element detector arrays are presented.

We report the performance study of a 2% atomic doped ceramic Nd:YAG rod for long pulse laser operation in the millisecond regime with pulse duration in the range of 0.5-20 ms. A maximum average output power of 520 W with 180 J maximum pulse energy has been achieved with a slope efficiency of 5.4% using a dual rod configuration, which is the highest for typical lamp pumped ceramic Nd:YAG lasers. The laser output characteristics of the ceramic Nd:YAG rod were revealed to be nearly equivalent or superior to those of high-quality single crystal Nd:YAG rod. The laser pump chamber and resonator were designed and optimized to achieve a high efficiency and good beam quality with a beam parameter product of 16 mm mrad (M2˜47). The laser output beam was efficiently coupled through a 400 μm core diameter optical fiber with 90% overall transmission efficiency. This ceramic Nd:YAG laser will be useful for various material processing applications in industry.

Nanosecond-pulsed dielectric barrier discharge actuators with powered electrodes of different exposures were investigated numerically by using a newly proposed plasma kinetic model. The governing equations include the coupled continuity plasma discharge equation, drift-diffusion equation, electron energy equation, Poisson’s equation, and the Navier-Stokes equations. Powered electrodes of three different exposures were simulated to understand the effect of surface exposure on plasma discharge and surrounding flow field. Our study showed that the fully exposed powered electrode resulted in earlier reduced electric field breakdown and more intensive discharge characteristics than partially exposed and rounded-exposed ones. Our study also showed that the reduced electric field and heat release concentrated near the right upper tip of the powered electrode. The fully exposed electrode also led to stronger shock wave, higher heating temperature, and larger heated area.

Three 26650 LiFePO4 (LFP) cells are cycled using a 40 A pulsed charge/discharge profile to study their performance in high rate pulsedapplications. This profile is used to simulate naval pulsedpower loads planned for deployment aboard future vessels. The LFP cells studied experienced an exponential drop in their usable high-rate recharge capacity within sixty cycles due to a rapid rise in their internal resistance. Differential capacitance shows that the voltage window for charge storage is pushed outside of the recommended voltage cutoff limits. Investigation into the state of health of the electrodes shows minimal loss of active material from the cathode to side reactions. Post-mortem examination of the anodic surface films reveals a large increase in the concentration of reduced salt compounds indicating that the pulsed profile creates highly favorable conditions for LiPF6 salt to break down into LiF. This film slows the ionic movement at the interface, affecting transfer kinetics, resulting in charge buildup in the bulk anode without successful energy storage. The results indicate that the use of these cells as a power supply for high pulsedpower loads is hindered because of ionically resistant film development and not by an increasing rate of active material loss.

In this work, the deposition of Cu thin films on Y substrates for photocathode applications by pulsed laser deposition employing picosecond laser pulses is reported and compared with the use of nanosecond pulses. The influence of power density (6–50 GW/cm{sup 2}) on the ablation of the target material, as well as on the properties of the resulting film, is discussed. The material transfer from the target to the substrate surface was found to be rather efficient, in comparison to nanosecond ablation, leading to the growth of films with high thickness. Scanning electron microscope analysis indicated a quasi-continuous film morphology, at low power density values, becoming granular with increasing power density. The structural investigation, through X-ray diffraction, revealed the poly-crystalline nature of the films, with a preferential growth along the (111) crystallographic orientation of Cu cubic network. Finally, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy showed a low contamination level of the grown films, demonstrating the potential of a PLD technique for the fabrication of Cu/Y patterned structures, with applications in radiofrequency electron gun technology. - Highlights: • Cu thin films were successfully deposited on Y substrates through ultrafast PLD. • The film presents a quasi-continuous morphology. • The use of picosecond pulses increases the film thickness. • The Cu thin films are very adherent to the Y substrate.

Self-compression of femtosecond pulses in noble gases with an input power close to the self-focusing threshold has been investigated experimentally and theoretically.It is demonstrated that either multiphoton ionization (MPI) or space-time focusing and self-steepening effects can induce pulse shortening,but they predominate at different beam intensities during the propagation.The latter effects play a key role in the final pulse self-compression.By choosing an appropriate focusing parameter,action distance of the space-time focusing and self-steepening effects can be lengthened,which can promote a shock pulse structure with a duration as short as two optical cycles.It is also found that,for our calculation eases in which an input pulsepower is close to the self-focusing threshold,either group velocity dispersion(GVD) or multiphoton absorption (MPA) has a negligible influence on pulse characteristics in the propagation process.

We present nonlinear pulse compression of a high-power SESAM-modelocked thin-disk laser (TDL) using an Ar-filled hypocycloid-core Kagome Hollow-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber (HC-PCF). The output of the modelocked Yb:YAG TDL with 127 W average power, a pulse repetition rate of 7 MHz, and a pulse duration of 740 fs was spectrally broadened 16-fold while propagating in a Kagome HC-PCF containing 13 bar of static Argon gas. Subsequent compression tests performed using 8.4% of the full available power resulted in a pulse duration as short as 88 fs using the spectrally broadened output from the fiber. Compressing the full transmitted power through the fiber (118 W) could lead to a compressed output of >100 W of average power and >100 MW of peak power with an average power compression efficiency of 88%. This simple laser system with only one ultrafast laser oscillator and a simple single-pass fiber pulse compressor, generating both high peak power >100 MW and sub-100-fs pulses at megahertz repetition rate, is very int...

he wakefield generated in a plasma by incoherently combining a large number of low energy laser pulses (i.e.,without constraining the pulse phases) is studied analytically and by means of fully-self-consistent particle-in-cell simulations. The structure of the wakefield has been characterized and its amplitude compared with the amplitude of the wake generated by a single (coherent) laser pulse. We show that, in spite of the incoherent nature of the wakefield within the volume occupied by the laser pulses, behind this region the structure of the wakefield can be regular with an amplitude comparable or equal to that obtained from a single pulse with the same energy. Wake generation requires that the incoherent structure in the laser energy density produced by the combined pulses exists on a time scale short compared to the plasma period. Incoherent combination of multiple laser pulses may enable a technologically simpler path to high-repetition rate, high-average power laser-plasma accelerators and associated applications.

Tunable single mode pulsed dye lasers are capable of generating optical radiations in the visible range having very small bandwidths (transform limited), high average power (a few kW) at a high pulse repetition rate (a few tens of kHz), small beam divergence and relatively higher efficiencies. These dye lasers are generally utilized laser dyes dissolved in solvents such as water, heavy water, ethanol, methanol, etc. to provide a rapidly flowing gain medium. The dye laser is a versatile tool, which can lase either in the continuous wave (CW) or in the pulsed mode with pulse duration as small as a few tens of femtoseconds. In this review, we have examined the several cavity designs, various types of gain mediums and numerous types of dye cell geometries for obtaining the single longitudinal mode pulsed dye laser. Different types of cavity configuration, such as very short cavity, short cavity with frequency selective element and relatively longer cavity with multiple frequency selective elements were reviewed. These single mode lasers have been pumped by all kinds of pumping sources such as flash lamps, Excimer, Nitrogen, Ruby, Nd:YAG, Copper Bromide and Copper Vapor Lasers. The single mode dye lasers are either pumped transversely or longitudinally to the resonator axis. The pulse repletion rate of these pump lasers were ranging from a few Hz to a few tens of kHz. Physics technology and engineering aspects of tuning mechanism, mode hop free scanning and dye cell designs are also presented in this review. Tuning of a single mode dye laser with a resolution of a few MHz per step is a technologically challenging task, which is discussed here.

This paper introduces an implementation for magnetic resonance wireless power transfer for space applications. The analysis includes an equivalent impedance study, loop material characterization, source/load resonance coupling technique, and system response behavior due to loads variability. System characterization is accomplished by executing circuit design from analytical equations and simulations using Matlab and SPICE. The theory was validated by a combination of different experiments that includes loop material consideration, resonance coupling circuits considerations, electric loads considerations and a small scale proof-of-concept prototype. Experiment results shows successful wireless power transfer for all the cases studied. The prototype provided about 4.5 W of power to the load at a separation of -5 cm from the source using a power amplifier rated for 7 W.

Power electronics is a branch of electrical engineering dealing with conversion and control of electric power using semiconductor power switches. This book provides an overview of modern power electronic converters and systems, and their applications.

The use of visible light emitting diodes (LEDs) as an alternative to Q-switched lasers conventionally used as photoacoustic excitation sources has been explored. In common with laser diodes, LEDs offer the advantages of compact size, low cost and high efficiency. However, laser diodes suitable for pulsed photoacoustic generation are typically available only at wavelengths greater than 750nm. By contrast, LEDs are readily available at visible wavelengths below 650nm where haemoglobin absorption is significantly higher, offering the prospect of increased SNR for superficial vascular imaging applications. To demonstrate feasibility, a range of low cost commercially available LEDs operating in the 420-620nm spectral range were used to generate photoacoustic signals in physiologically realistic vascular phantoms. Overdriving with 200ns pulses and operating at a low duty cycle enabled pulse energies up to 10µJ to be obtained with a 620nm LED. By operating at a high pulse repetition frequency (PRF) in order to rapidly signal average over many acquisitions, this pulse energy was sufficient to generate detectable signals in a blood filled tube immersed in an Intralipid suspension (µs' = 1mm(-1)) at a depth of 15mm using widefield illumination. In addition, a compact four-wavelength LED (460nm, 530nm, 590nm, 620nm) in conjunction with a coded excitation scheme was used to illustrate rapid multiwavelength signal acquisition for spectroscopic applications. This study demonstrates that LEDs could find application as inexpensive and compact multiwavelength photoacoustic excitation sources for imaging superficial vascular anatomy. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

This report describes technical opportunities to serve as parts of a technological roadmap for Shoals Technologies Group in power electronics for PV applications. There are many different power converter circuits that can be used for solar inverter applications. The present applications do not take advantage of the potential for using common modules. We envision that the development of a power electronics module could enable higher reliability by being durable and flexible. Modules would have fault current limiting features and detection circuits such that they can limit the current through the module from external faults and can identify and isolate internal faults such that the remaining modules can continue to operate with only minimal disturbance to the utility or customer. Development of a reliable, efficient, low-cost, power electronics module will be a key enabling technology for harnessing more power from solar panels and enable plug and play operation. Power electronics for computer power supplies, communication equipment, and transportation have all targeted reliability and modularity as key requirements and have begun concerted efforts to replace monolithic components with collections of common smart modules. This is happening on several levels including (1) device level with intelligent control, (2) functional module level, and (3) system module. This same effort is needed in power electronics for solar applications. Development of modular units will result in standard power electronic converters that will have a lower installed and operating cost for the overall system. These units will lead to increased adaptability and flexibility of solar inverters. Incorporating autonomous fault current limiting and reconfiguration capabilities into the modules and having redundant modules will lead to a durable converter that can withstand the rigors of solar power generation for more than 30 years. Our vision for the technology roadmap is that there is no need

This report describes technical opportunities to serve as parts of a technological roadmap for Shoals Technologies Group in power electronics for PV applications. There are many different power converter circuits that can be used for solar inverter applications. The present applications do not take advantage of the potential for using common modules. We envision that the development of a power electronics module could enable higher reliability by being durable and flexible. Modules would have fault current limiting features and detection circuits such that they can limit the current through the module from external faults and can identify and isolate internal faults such that the remaining modules can continue to operate with only minimal disturbance to the utility or customer. Development of a reliable, efficient, low-cost, power electronics module will be a key enabling technology for harnessing more power from solar panels and enable plug and play operation. Power electronics for computer power supplies, communication equipment, and transportation have all targeted reliability and modularity as key requirements and have begun concerted efforts to replace monolithic components with collections of common smart modules. This is happening on several levels including (1) device level with intelligent control, (2) functional module level, and (3) system module. This same effort is needed in power electronics for solar applications. Development of modular units will result in standard power electronic converters that will have a lower installed and operating cost for the overall system. These units will lead to increased adaptability and flexibility of solar inverters. Incorporating autonomous fault current limiting and reconfiguration capabilities into the modules and having redundant modules will lead to a durable converter that can withstand the rigors of solar power generation for more than 30 years. Our vision for the technology roadmap is that there is no need

This report describes the state-of-the-art of fuel cell technology for portable powerapplications. The study involved a comprehensive literature review. Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have attracted much more interest than either direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) or solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). However, issues relating to fuel choice and catalyst design remain with PEMFCs; DMFCs have excellent potential provided issues relating to the conducting membrane can be resolved but the current high temperature of operation and low power density currently makes SOFCs less applicable to portable applications. Available products are listed and the obstacles to market penetration are discussed. The main barriers are cost and the size/weight of fuel cells compared with batteries. Another key problem is the lack of a suitable fuel infrastructure.

This paper provides a high level overview of current nuclear power technology and the potential use of nuclear power at military bases. The size, power ranges, and applicability of nuclear power units for military base power are reviewed. Previous and current reactor projects are described to further define the potential for nuclear power for military power.

A comparative study of deposition rate, adhesion, structural and electrical properties of nanocrystalline copper thin films deposited using direct current magnetron sputtering (DCMS) and different regimes of high powerpulsed magnetron sputtering is presented. High-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) and burst regime (pulse packages) of magnetron sputtering are investigated. The ion and atomic flows toward the growing film during magnetron sputtering of a Cu target are determined. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy were used to observe the structural characterization of the films. The resistivity of the films was measured using four-point probe technique. In all sputtering regimes, Cu films have mixture crystalline orientations of [111], [200], [311] and [220] in the direction of the film growth. As peak power density in studied deposition regimes was different in order of magnitude (from 15 W/cm2 in DC regime to 3700 W/cm2 in HIPIMS), film properties were also greatly different. DCMS Cu films exhibit a porous columnar grain structure. In contrast, HIPIMS Cu films have a slightly columnar and denser composition. Cu films deposited using burst regimes at peak power density of 415 W cm-2 and ion-to-atom ratio of about 5 have the densest composition and smallest electrical resistance.

The purpose of this study was to differentiate dysplastic (DN) from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with liver cirrhosis on contrast-enhanced power and pulsed Doppler US. Twenty-one patients with liver cirrhosis and a focal lesion were included. They consisted of biopsy proven 12 DNs (mean diameter; 1.8 cm, M : F = 5 :7, mean age 60) and 9 HCCs (mean diameter: 2.3 cm, M : F = 6 : 3,mean age 63). All the patients were prospectively examined with Acusion Computed Sonography 128XP/10 and 4 MHz vector transducer. Gray-scale US was done to assess the echogenicity of the focal lesion. Vascular flow signals within the focal lesion were examined with power Doppler US. After the injection of 7 ml (300 mg/ml) suspension of US contrast agent (Levovist, Schering, Berlin, Germary), vascular flow signals were graded to 4 grades on power Doppler US. Arterial and/or venous flow pattern on pulsed Doppler US were evaluated. Statistical analysis was done using chi-square method. On gray-scale US, 10 (83%) DNs showed hypoechogenicity and the other two (17%) showed hyperechogenicity 7 (78%) HCCs were hypoechoic and two (22%) were hyperechoic. On non-enhanced power Doppler US, all 12 cases (100%) of DNs had no vascular flow signal and four cases of nine HCCs (grade II: three, grade III: one) revealed vascular flow signals (p=0.429). On contrast-enhanced power Doppler US, 11 cases(92%) of DNs and all cases (100%) of HCCs showed increased vascular flow signals. Three (24%) of DNs and 7 (78%) of HCCs showed grade III and IV. There was a statistical difference in the grade of vascular flow signals between two groups (p=0.03). On pulsed Doppler US, the arterial flow was present in 2 (17%) DNs and 8 (89%) HCCs (p=0.002) and venous flow was present in 11 (92%) DNs and 5 (56%) HCCs. Combined flow appeared in 2 cases (16%) of DNs and 4 cases (44%) of HCCs. In differentiating DN from HCC, the higher probability of HCC can be considered if a focal lesion in cirrhotic patients has grade

A Talbot-Lau X-ray Deflectometer was deployed using laser driven and x-pinch x-ray backlighters. The Talbot-Lau X-ray Deflectometer is an ideal electron density diagnostic for High Energy Density plasmas with the potential to simultaneously deliver x-ray refraction, attenuation, elemental composition, and scatter information from a single image with source limited resolution. Grating survival and electron density mapping was demonstrated for 10-29 J, 8-30 ps laser pulses using Cu foil targets at the Multi-TeraWatt facility. An areal electron density of 0.050 g/cm2 was obtained at the center of a fluoro-nylon fiber of 300 mm diameter with a source FWHM of 80 µm and resolution of 50 µm. Grating survival and Moiré pattern formation was demonstrated using a Cu x-pinch plasma of FWHM 27 µm, driven by the 350 kA, 350 ns Llampudken pulsedpower generator. These results closely match simulations and laboratory results. It was demonstrated that the technique can detect both sharp and smooth density gradients in the range of 2x1023 to 2x1025 cm-3, thus allowing implementation of the electron density technique as a HED plasma diagnostic in both laser and pulsedpower experiments U.S. DoE/NNSA and DE-NA0002955.

In a context of the rising use of composite assemblies in aeronautic or defense fields, the assessment of their strength is a key issue. The method developed in this study attempts to provide solutions. A shock adhesion test based on short compressive loads, obtained by a high pulsedpower generator, is proposed as a proof test to ensure the quality of composite bonded assemblies. A calibrated load induces a local tensile stress able to damage the bond interface. The high pulsedpower source is the GEnerateur de Pression Isentropique device (Isentropic Pressure Generator), used to generate the required stresses, with a 450 ns pulse duration to test assemblies above the mm thickness range. The understanding of the mechanisms of wave propagation and tensile stress generation within these multilayer assemblies are scientific challenges. The ability of the technique to induce a tensile stress able to disbond the laminates and the assemblies is demonstrated. This paper details the response of carbon epoxy laminates and their bonded assemblies to a shock loading near the damage threshold.

Integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar is a remote sensing technique for monitoring different atmospheric species. The technique relies on wavelength differentiation between strong and weak absorbing features normalized to the transmitted energy. 2-micron double-pulsed IPDA lidar is best suited for atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements. In such case, the transmitter produces two successive laser pulses separated by short interval (200 microseconds), with low repetition rate (10Hz). Conventional laser energy monitors, based on thermal detectors, are suitable for low repetition rate single pulse lasers. Due to the short pulse interval in double-pulsed lasers, thermal energy monitors underestimate the total transmitted energy. This leads to measurement biases and errors in double-pulsed IPDA technique. The design and calibration of a 2-micron double-pulse laser energy monitor is presented. The design is based on a high-speed, extended range InGaAs pin quantum detectors suitable for separating the two pulse events. Pulse integration is applied for converting the detected pulsepower into energy. Results are compared to a photo-electro-magnetic (PEM) detector for impulse response verification. Calibration included comparing the three detection technologies in single-pulsed mode, then comparing the pin and PEM detectors in double-pulsed mode. Energy monitor linearity will be addressed.

With the growing attention to the exploitation of renewable energies and heat recovery from industrial processes, the traditional steam and gas cycles are showing themselves often inadequate. The inadequacy is due to the great assortment of the required sizes power and of the large kind of heat sources. Closed Power Cycles: Thermodynamic Fundamentals and Applications offers an organized discussion about the strong interaction between working fluids, the thermodynamic behavior of the cycle using them and the technological design aspects of the machines. A precise treatment of thermal engines op

The surprising discovery of superconductivity a century ago launched a chain of convention-shattering innovations and discoveries in superconducting materials and applications that continues to this day. The range of large-scale applications grows with new materials discoveries - low temperature NbTi and Nb3 Sn for liquid helium cooled superconducting magnets, intermediate temperature MgB2 for inexpensive cryocooled applications including MRI magnets, and high temperature YBCO and BSSCO for high current applications cooled with inexpensive liquid nitrogen. Applications based on YBCO address critical emerging challenges for the electricity grid, including high capacity superconducting cables to distribute power in urban areas; transmission of renewable electricity over long distances from source to load; high capacity DC interconnections among the three US grids; fast, self-healing fault current limiters to increase reliability; low-weight, high capacity generators enabling off-shore wind turbines; and superconducting magnetic energy storage for smoothing the variability of renewable sources. In addition to these grid applications, coated conductors based on YBCO deposited on strong Hastelloy substrates enable a new generation of all superconducting high field magnets capable of producing fields above 30 T, approximately 50% higher than the existing all superconducting limit based on Nb3 Sn . The high fields, low power cost and the quiet electromagnetic and mechanical operation of such magnets could change the character of high field basic research on materials, enable a new generation of high-energy colliding beam experiments and extend the reach of high density superconducting magnetic energy storage.

We have developed an efficient and high average power flash lamp pumped long pulse Nd:YAG laser capable of generating 1 kW of average output power with maximum 540 J of single pulse energy and 20 kW of peak power. The laser pulse duration can be varied from 1 to 40 ms and repetition rate from 1 to 100 Hz. A compact and robust laser pump chamber and resonator was designed to achieve this high average and peak power. It was found that this laser system provides highest single pulse energy as compared to other long pulsed Nd:YAG laser systems of similar rating. A slope efficiency of 5.4% has been achieved, which is on higher side for typical lamp pumped solid-state lasers. This system will be highly useful in laser welding of materials such as aluminium and titanium. We have achieved 4 mm deep penetration welding of these metals under optimized conditions of output power, pulse energy, and pulse duration. The laser resonator was optimized to provide stable operation from single shot to 100 Hz of repetition rate. The beam quality factor was measured to be M(2) ~ 91 and pulse-to-pulse stability of ±3% for the multimode operation. The laser beam was efficiently coupled through an optical fiber of 600 μm core diameter and 0.22 numerical aperture with power transmission of 90%.

We have developed an efficient and high average power flash lamp pumped long pulse Nd:YAG laser capable of generating 1 kW of average output power with maximum 540 J of single pulse energy and 20 kW of peak power. The laser pulse duration can be varied from 1 to 40 ms and repetition rate from 1 to 100 Hz. A compact and robust laser pump chamber and resonator was designed to achieve this high average and peak power. It was found that this laser system provides highest single pulse energy as compared to other long pulsed Nd:YAG laser systems of similar rating. A slope efficiency of 5.4% has been achieved, which is on higher side for typical lamp pumped solid-state lasers. This system will be highly useful in laser welding of materials such as aluminium and titanium. We have achieved 4 mm deep penetration welding of these metals under optimized conditions of output power, pulse energy, and pulse duration. The laser resonator was optimized to provide stable operation from single shot to 100 Hz of repetition rate. The beam quality factor was measured to be M2 ˜ 91 and pulse-to-pulse stability of ±3% for the multimode operation. The laser beam was efficiently coupled through an optical fiber of 600 μm core diameter and 0.22 numerical aperture with power transmission of 90%.

We report on a first experimental demonstration of locking a doubly-resonant Fabry-Perot cavity to burst-mode picosecond ultraviolet (UV) pulses by using a temperature controlled dispersion compensation method. This technique will eventually enable the intra cavity power enhancement of burst-mode 402.5MHz/50ps UV laser pulses with a MW level peak power required for the laser assisted H- beam stripping experiment at the Spallation Neutron Source.

The University of Texas at Austin is constructing a facility for research in pulsepower technology for the Center for Electromechanics at the Balcones Research Center. The facility, designed to support high-current experiments, will be powered by six homopolar generators, each rated at 10 MJ and arranged to allow matching the requirements of resistive and inductive loads at various voltage and current combinations. Topics covered include the high bay, the power supply configuration and parameters, the speed and field control, and the magnetic circuit. Also considered are the removable air-cooled brushes, the water-cooled field coils, the hydraulic motor sizing and direct coupling, the low-impedance removable field coils, and the hydrostatic bearing design.

A switch mode pulse width modulated DC-DC power converter comprises at least one first electronic circuit on a input side (1) and a second electronic circuit on a output side (2). The input side (1) and the output side (2) are coupled via at least two power transformers (T1, T2). Each power...... transformer (T1, T2) comprises a first winding (T1a, T2a) arranged in a input side converter stage (3, 4) on the input side (1) and a second winding (T1 b, T2b) arranged in a output side converter stage (5) on the output side (2), and each of the windings (T1a, T1 b, T2a, T2b) has a first end and a second end...

An ultra-low-power wireless transmitter for embedded bionic systems is proposed, which achieves 40 pJ/b energy efficiency and delivers 500 kb/s data using the medical implant communication service frequency band (402-405 MHz). It consumes a measured peak power of 200 µW from a 1.2 V supply while occupying an active area of 0.0016 mm(2) in a 130 nm technology. A modified pulse position modulation technique called saturated amplified signal is proposed and implemented, which can reduce the overall and per bit transferred power consumption of the transmitter while reducing the complexity of the transmitter architectures, and hence potentially shrinking the size of the implemented circuitry. The design is capable of being fully integrated on single-chip solutions for surgically implanted bionic systems, wearable devices and neural embedded systems.

The HERMES III accelerator, which is located at Sandia National Laboratories' Tech Area IV, is the largest pulsed gamma X-ray source in the world. The accelerator is made up of 20 inductive cavities that are charged to 1 MV each by complex pulsedpower circuitry. The firing time of the machine components ranges between the microsecond and nanosecond timescales. This results in a variety of electromagnetic frequencies when the accelerator fires. Testing was done to identify the HERMES electromagnetic noise signal and to map it to the various accelerator trigger events. This report will show the measurement methods used to capture the noise spectrum produced from the machine and correlate this noise signature with machine events.

Full Text Available A novel two-objective optimization design model for pulsedpower supply (PPS is proposed in this paper. The objectives are the muzzle velocity and the stored-to-kinetic energy efficiency. The design variables include the operating voltage and the trigger delay times between segments. The acceleration of the armature is constrained to lower than 106 m/s2. The optimization results for nuzzle velocity and the efficiency separately show the following: 1 The acceleration constraint has great influence on the performance; 2 wide current pulse yields high velocity but low efficiency; and 3 The operating voltage has to be increased to accelerate a heavier projectile to a certain velocity or at a certain efficiency. Pareto solution fronts for various projectile masses are found using the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II under the integration environment of MATLAB software.

RFNC-VNIIEF is creating a multi-module multi-terawatt electro-physical facility “Gamma”, intended for research in the field of radiation physics. Up to now RFNC-VNIIEF created the first module of the facility - a high-current pulsed electron accelerator “Gamma-1”, having the following parameters: boundary energy of the electrons of ≤ 2.0 MeV, diode current of 0.75 MA, maximum electric power of 1.5 TW. Creation of the 4-module variant of the facility (Gamma-4) is the next stage of the work. This paper presents calculation research of expected characteristics of soft x-ray radiation output pulse at “Gamma-4” facility operation into a common load (Z-pinch).

In the complex VEPP-5 preinjector the klystrons are supplied by the modulators with a pulsepower of 150 MW,a voltage of 47.5 kV, a primary current of 6.3 kA and a pulse duration of 3.5 mu s. During the long time operation some disadvantages in the design have been revealed and proper improvements were made. The modulator design with the taking into account all the resent changes is described and test results are presented. At present,three modulators are supplying three klystrons 5045 (production of SLAC Lab.,USA) and the forth modulator is tested with a dummy load in the nominal mode of operation.

This paper introduces and describes the new Cornell Beam Research Accelerator, COBRA, the result of a three and one-half year collaboration. The flexible 4 to 5-MV, 100 to 250-kA, 46-ns pulse width accelerator is based on a four-cavity Inductive Voltage Adder (IVA) design. In addition to being a mix of new and existing components, COBRA is unique in the sense that each cavity is driven by a single pulse forming line, and the IVA output polarity may be reversed by rotating the cavities 1800 about their vertical axis. Our tests with negative high voltage on the inner MITL stalk indicate that the vacuum power flow has established reasonable azimuthal symmetry within about 2 ns (or 0.6 m) after the cavity output cap. Preliminary results with the accelerator, single cavity, and MITL are presented alone, with the design details and circuit model predictions.

A high-voltage pulse has wide application in fields such as chemistry, physics and biology and their combinations. The high-voltage pulse forms two kinds of physical processes in water, namely (a) a pulsed electric field (PEF) in the parallel electrode configuration and (b) plasma generation by a pulsed discharge in the water phase with a concentrated electric field. The PEF can be used for inactivation of bacteria in liquid foods as a non-thermal process, and the underwater plasma is applicable not only for the decomposition of organic materials in water but also for biological treatment of wastewater. These discharge states are controlled mainly by the applied pulse voltage and the electrode shape. Some examples of environmental and biotechnological applications of a high-voltage pulse are reviewed.

A burgeoning field has developed around the use of non-equilibrium (``cold'') plasmas for various medical applications, including wound treatment, surface sterilization, non-thermal hemostasis, and selective cell destruction. Proposed devices typically utilize pulsed DC power sources, which have no other therapeutic utility, and may encounter significant regulatory restrictions regarding their safety for use in patient care. Additionally, dedicated capital equipment is difficult for healthcare facilities to justify. In this work, we have demonstrated for the first time the generation of non-equilibrium plasma using pulsed AC output from a specially-designed electrosurgical generator. The ability to power novel non-equilibrium plasma devices from a piece of equipment already ubiquitous in operating theatres should significantly reduce the barriers to adoption of plasma devices. We demonstrate the ability of a prototype device, coupled to this source, to reduce bacterial growth in vitro. Such a system could allow a single surgical instrument to provide both non-thermal sterilization and thermal tissue dissection.

This paper discusses the characterization of a pulsed mode high voltage power supply (HVPS) using LT1073 chip. The pulsed modulated signal generated from this chip is amplified using a step-up ferrite core transformer of 1:20 turn ratio and then further multiplied and converted into DC high voltage output using a diode-capacitor arrangement. The circuit is powered by a 9V alkaline battery but regulated at 5V supply. It was found that the output for this setup is 520V, 87 μA with 10% load regulation. This output is suitable to operate a pancake-type GM detector, typically model LND 7317 where the plateau is from 475V to 675V. It was also found that when a β-source with intensity of 120 cps is used, the power consumption of the circuit is 5 V, 10.1 mA only. When the battery was left 'on' for 40 hours continuously, the battery's voltage has dropped to 6.9V, meaning that the 5V supply as well as 520V output is still maintained. It is noted that the minimum output voltage of 475V has reached when the regulated supply has reduced to 4.6V and consequently the 9V battery dropped to 6.5V, and this had happened after approximately 3 days of continuous operation. The power efficiency for this circuitry was found to be 89.5%. This result has far better in performance since the commercial portable equipment of this type has normally specified that not less than 8 hours continuous operation only. On the circuit design for this power supply, it was found that the enveloped frequency is 133 Hz with approximately 50% duty cycle. The modulated frequency during 'on' state was found to be 256 KHz in which the majority of power consumption is required.

Electromagnetic gun applications of the Rotating Bed Reactor (RBR) are examined. The RBR is a compact (approx. 1 m/sup 3/), (up to several thousand MW(th)), high-power reactor concept, capable of producing a high-temperature (up to approx. 300/sup 0/K) gas stream with a MHD generator coupled to it, the RBR can generate electric power (up to approx. 1000 MW(e)) in the pulsed or cw modes. Three EM gun applications are investigated: a rail gun thruster for orbit transfer, a rapid-fire EM gun for point defense, and a direct ground-to-space launch. The RBR appears suitable for all applications.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The primary objective of the proposed Phase I effort is to develop and demonstrate a low-average power, pulsed, single-frequency, 2-um Ho-laser source for...

In a very comprehensive way this book covers all aspects of high power diode laser technology for materials processing. Basics as well as new application oriented results obtained in a government funded national German research project are described in detail. Along the technological chain after a short introduction in the second chapter diode laser bar technology is discussed regarding structure, manufacturing technology and metrology. The third chapter illuminates all aspects of mounting and cooling, whereas chapter four gives wide spanning details on beam forming, beam guiding and beam combination, which are essential topics for incoherently coupled multi-emitter based high power diode lasers. Metrology, standards and safety aspects are the theme of chapter five. As an outcome of all the knowledge from chapter two to four various system configurations of high power diode lasers are described in chapter six; not only systems focussed on best available beam quality but especially also so called "modular" set...

We present a high peak power degenerated parametric amplifier operating at 1030 nm and 97 kHz repetition rate. Pulses of a state-of-the art fiber chirped-pulse amplification (FCPA) system with 840 fs pulse duration and 410 microJ pulse energy are used as pump and seed source for a two stage optical parametric amplifier. Additional spectral broadening of the seed signal in a photonic crystal fiber creates enough bandwidth for ultrashort pulse generation. Subsequent amplification of the broadband seed signal in two 1 mm BBO crystals results in 41 microJ output pulse energy. Compression in a SF 11 prism compressor yields 37 microJ pulses as short as 52 fs. Thus, pulse shortening of more than one order of magnitude is achieved. Further scaling in terms of average power and pulse energy seems possible and will be discussed, since both concepts involved, the fiber laser and the parametric amplifier have the reputation to be immune against thermo-optical effects.

A physical model combining rate, power propagation, and transient heat conduction equations for diode-pumped alkali vapor lasers (DPAL) is applied to a pulsed Rb-CH4 DPAL, which agrees well with the time evolution of laser power and temperature measured by K absorption spectroscopy. The output feature and temperature rise of a multi-pulse DPAL are also calculated in the time domain, showing that if we energize the pump light when the temperature rise decays to 1/2, rather than 1/e of its maximum, we can increase the duty cycle and obtain more output energy. The repetition rate of >100Hz is high enough to achieve QCW (quasi-continuous-wave) laser pulses.

Space exploration missions to the moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies have allowed for great scientific leaps to enhance our knowledge of the universe; yet the astronomical cost of these missions limits their utility to only a few select agencies. Reducing the cost of exploratory space travel will give rise to a new era of exploration, where private investors, universities, and world governments can send satellites to far off planets and gather important data. By using radioisotope power sources and thermal storage devices, a duty cycle can be introduced to extract large amounts of energy in short amounts of time, allowing for efficient space travel. The same device can also provide electrical power for subsystems such as communications, drills, lasers, or other components that can provide valuable scientific information. This project examines the use of multiple radioisotope sources combined with a thermal capacitor using Phase Change Materials (PCMs) which can collect energy over a period of time. The result of this design culminates in a variety of possible spacecraft with their own varying costs, transit times, and objectives. Among the most promising are missions to Mars which cost less than 17M, missions that can provide power to satellite constellations for decades, or missions that can deliver large, Opportunity-sized (185kg) payloads to mars for less than 53M. All made available to a much wider range of customer with commercially available satellite launches from earth. The true cost of such progress though lies in the sometimes substantial increase in transit times for these missions.

The growth rate during reactive high powerpulsed magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) of titanium nitride is measured with a temporal resolution of up to 25 us using a rotating shutter concept. According to that concept a 200 um slit is rotated in front of the substrate synchronous with the HIPIMS pulses. Thereby, the growth flux is laterally distributed over the substrate. By measuring the resulting deposition profile with profilometry and with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, the temporal variation of the titanium and nitrogen growth flux per pulse is deduced. The analysis reveals that film growth occurs mainly during a HIPIMS pulse, with the growth rate following the HIPIMS phases ignition, current rise, gas rarefaction, plateau and afterglow. The growth fluxes of titanium and nitrogen follow slightly different behaviors with titanium dominating at the beginning of the HIPIMS pulse and nitrogen at the end of the pulse. This is explained by the gas rarefaction effect resulting in a dense initial metal plasma and...

The results of a feasibility study which showed that a low-temperature, high-efficient thermionic power system can efficiently convert solar energy to electrical energy without heat transport, as required by most solar thermal systems are described. A 3-dimensional (2-axis tracking) 93 sq m parabolic solar concentrator, consisting of mirrors on a foam glass substrate and designed to a concentration ratio (mirror area/aperture area) of 2000 is considered for producing a design temperature of 1100 C at an efficiency of 74%. A tracking subsystem must track the sun at an accuracy of a nominal plus or minus 1.0 degree for maximum use of the sun's energy. Each complete solar thermionic power system unit rated at about 20 kWe peak can generate approximately 48,000 kWh/yr. In addition, a thermal energy conversion system can be cascaded within the thermionic power system so that the high quality waste heat can be further utilized to increase the net electrical output. Potential applications of a solar thermionic power generation system are remote sites, apartment house complexes, heating and cooling, hydrogen production and large power stations.

One of the crucial challenges of the aviation industry in upcoming years is to reduce emissions not only in the vicinity of airfields but also in cruise. Amongst other transport methods, airplanes emissions count for 3% of the CO 2 emissions. Initiatives to reduce this include not only investing in more fuel-efficient aircrafts or adapting existing ones to make them more efficient (e.g. by fitting fuel-saving winglets), but also more actively researching novel propulsion systems that incorporate environmentally friendly technologies. The Boeing Company through its European subsidiary, Boeing Research and Technology Europe (BR&TE) in collaboration with industry partners throughout Europe is working towards this goal by studying the possible application of advanced batteries and fuel-cell systems in aeronautical applications. One example is the development of a small manned two-seater prototype airplane powered only by proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel-cell stacks, which runs on compressed hydrogen gas as fuel and pressurized air as oxidant, and Li-ion batteries. The efficient all composite motorglider is an all electric prototype airplane which does not produce any of the noxious engine exhaust by-products, such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide or NO x, that can contribute to climate change and adversely affect local air quality. Water and heat are the only exhaust products. The main objective is to demonstrate for the first time in aviation history a straight level manned flight with fuel-cells as the only power source. For this purpose, the original engine of a super Dimona HK36TTC glider from Diamond Aircraft Industries (Austria) was replaced by a hybrid power system, which feeds a brushless dc electrical motor that rotates a variable pitch propeller. Amongst the many technical challenges encountered when developing this test platform are maintaining the weight and balance of the aircraft, designing the thermal management system and the power management

One of the crucial challenges of the aviation industry in upcoming years is to reduce emissions not only in the vicinity of airfields but also in cruise. Amongst other transport methods, airplanes emissions count for 3% of the CO{sub 2} emissions. Initiatives to reduce this include not only investing in more fuel-efficient aircrafts or adapting existing ones to make them more efficient (e.g. by fitting fuel-saving winglets), but also more actively researching novel propulsion systems that incorporate environmentally friendly technologies. The Boeing Company through its European subsidiary, Boeing Research and Technology Europe (BR and TE) in collaboration with industry partners throughout Europe is working towards this goal by studying the possible application of advanced batteries and fuel-cell systems in aeronautical applications. One example is the development of a small manned two-seater prototype airplane powered only by proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel-cell stacks, which runs on compressed hydrogen gas as fuel and pressurized air as oxidant, and Li-ion batteries. The efficient all composite motorglider is an all electric prototype airplane which does not produce any of the noxious engine exhaust by-products, such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide or NOx, that can contribute to climate change and adversely affect local air quality. Water and heat are the only exhaust products. The main objective is to demonstrate for the first time in aviation history a straight level manned flight with fuel-cells as the only power source. For this purpose, the original engine of a super Dimona HK36TTC glider from Diamond Aircraft Industries (Austria) was replaced by a hybrid power system, which feeds a brushless dc electrical motor that rotates a variable pitch propeller. Amongst the many technical challenges encountered when developing this test platform are maintaining the weight and balance of the aircraft, designing the thermal management system and the power

We reported a high average power and energy microsecond pulse erbium-doped fluoride fiber MOPA system centered at 2786.8 nm. The master oscillator was a passively Q-switched erbium-doped fluoride fiber laser based on SESAM in a linear cavity. Then a one-stage erbium-doped fluoride fiber amplifier was used to boost its average output power to 4.2 W and pulse energy to 58.87 μJ. The pulse duration and repetition rate were 2.29 µs and 71.73 kHz, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, the achieved average output power and pulse energy are the recorded levels for the passively Q-switched fiber lasers at 3 μm wavelength region.

The report gives results of a study to determine the effect of acoustic pulsations on the steady-state operation of a pulse combustor burning liquid hazardous waste. A horizontal tunnel furnace was retrofitted with a liquid injection pulse combustor that burned No. 2 fuel oil. Th...